Top 20 Laravel Packages to Supercharge Development and Boost SEO in 2025

Laravel’s rich ecosystem of packages can greatly accelerate your development by providing ready-made solutions for common needs. Instead of reinventing the wheel for every project, you can use these packages to add features, enhance security, or improve performance with minimal effort. In this article, we’ll visit the best Laravel packages (updated for 2025) in various categories and illustrate how they fit into modern Laravel development.

Key Takeaways:

• Laravel packages are reusable modules (often distributed via Composer) that add specific functionality to your application, saving you time and effort in development.
• There are two main types of packages: framework-specific (built to work exclusively with Laravel) and framework-independent (general PHP packages that Laravel can integrate with).
• You can find high-quality Laravel packages for almost every aspect of web development – from debugging and UI scaffolding to security, e-commerce, SEO optimization, and testing.
• Choosing the right package for a given task depends on your project’s requirements, Laravel version compatibility, and the package’s maintenance and community support. New alternatives (like Spatie’s libraries for roles/permissions or the Pest testing framework) have become popular in recent years, which we’ll note in context below.

What is a Laravel Package?

A Laravel package is essentially a chunk of pre-built code that you can plug into your Laravel application to add a particular feature or functionality. Think of it as a toolbox or library focusing on one area – for example, user authentication, payments, or debugging. By installing and configuring a package, you avoid writing that functionality from scratch and can rely on well-tested implementations provided by the Laravel community or Laravel’s team.

Packages typically contain code (classes, controllers, views, configurations) that integrate with the Laravel framework. They often provide service providers for easy integration and may include facade classes for convenient access. In short, packages help you extend Laravel’s capabilities in a modular way, letting you focus on your app’s unique logic rather than boilerplate.

Laravel Package vs. Bundle

In Laravel’s early days, you might have heard the term “bundle” used similarly to “package.” While both refer to reusable pieces of code, there’s a subtle difference:

Feature	Package (Modern Laravel)	Bundle (Old term)
Origin	Developed by the community or third-party developers	Developed by the Laravel core team (first-party)
Inclusion	Not included by default – you install as needed via Composer	Included with a fresh Laravel installation (built-in)
Examples	Debugbar, Socialite, Spatie Backup (third-party additions)	Authentication, Cache, Queue (shipped with Laravel)

In current Laravel (5.x through 10.x and beyond), packages are the standard way to add reusable functionality. First-party features maintained by Laravel (like Passport for OAuth, Horizon for queues, etc.) are also distributed as packages. The term “bundle” is mostly historical now.

Types of Laravel Packages

Laravel packages come in two main categories: framework-specific and framework-independent.

1. Framework-Specific Packages

Framework-specific packages are designed specifically for Laravel. They leverage Laravel’s features, conventions, and architecture to provide functionality tailored to Laravel applications. These packages often include Laravel service providers, facades, and may assume the presence of Laravel’s components (routing, Eloquent ORM, etc.). Examples include packages for Laravel authentication scaffolding or caching enhancements that tie into Laravel’s cache system.

2. Framework-Independent Packages

Framework-independent packages are not tied to Laravel and can be used in any PHP project. Project. They offer general-purpose functionality that isn’t specifically aware of Laravel’s internals. Laravel can still use these via Composer, but integration might require a bit more manual setup (for example, configuring a generic PHP mailer or image processing library to work within Laravel). These packages are versatile across various PHP projects. Examples include a general HTTP client library, a pure PHP image manipulation library, or a validation library – all of which could be used in Laravel but aren’t built exclusively for it.

In practice, Laravel-specific packages often give the smoothest integration. However, don’t overlook framework-independent PHP libraries – Laravel can usually accommodate them, and they might be the best-in-class solution for certain tasks.

List of the Best Laravel Packages

Below is a summary of the 20 best Laravel packages we’ll cover, grouped by category, along with their primary purpose and a link to their source (GitHub when available):

Category	Package Name	Purpose	GitHub / Source
Development	Laravel Debugbar	Developer toolbar for debugging (queries, logs, etc.)	GitHub
Development	Laravel User Verification	Handles user email verification workflow	GitHub
Development	Socialite	Simplified OAuth login with social networks	GitHub
Development	Laravel Mix	Asset compilation tool (Webpack API for Laravel)	GitHub
Development	Eloquent Sluggable	Generates SEO-friendly slugs for Eloquent models	GitHub
Development	Migrations Generator	Generates migration files from an existing database	GitHub
Development	Laravel Backup	Creates backups of files and databases (backup tool)	GitHub
Development	Laravel IDE Helper	Improves IDE auto-completion for the Laravel framework	GitHub
Security	Entrust	Role-Based Access Control (user roles/permissions)	GitHub
Security	No Captcha	Google reCAPTCHA validation to prevent bot spam	GitHub
Admin Panel	Voyager	Visual admin panel builder (CRUD interface)	GitHub
Admin Panel	LaraAdmin	Open-source admin panel and CRUD generator	GitHub
Admin Panel	Orchid	Toolkit for building admin interfaces and dashboards	GitHub
Ecommerce	Bagisto	Complete open-source eCommerce framework for Laravel	GitHub
Ecommerce	AvoRed	Open-source Laravel shopping cart (modular eCommerce)	GitHub
SEO	Laravel Meta Manager	Manages website meta tags (SEO optimization)	GitHub
SEO	SEOTools	Comprehensive SEO tools (meta, OpenGraph, sitemap)	GitHub
SEO	Laravel-SEO	Simplified SEO meta tag management (insert/edit tags)	GitHub
Debugging	Laravel Telescope	Debugging assistant: monitors requests, queries, etc.	Docs
Testing	Orchestral Testbench	Enables package testing as if inside a Laravel app	GitHub

Now, let’s dive into each category and package in detail, including examples of how to use them in your Laravel projects.

Laravel Development Packages

These development-oriented packages streamline your workflow during application development. They include tools for debugging, user authentication scaffolding, social logins, asset compilation, and code generation.

1. Laravel Debugbar

Laravel Debugbar is an essential developer tool that adds a debug toolbar to your Laravel application. Once installed and enabled, it appears in your app’s browser window (usually as a sidebar or bottom bar) whenever you’re in a development environment. The debugbar provides real-time insights into your app’s performance and operations, such as:

• Database queries (including bindings and execution time)
• Rendered views and the data passed to them.
• Logged messages and exceptions
• Request/Response data, route information, and more

This package is extremely helpful for troubleshooting and optimizing. Instead of guessing what’s happening under the hood, Debugbar shows you the details for each request. You can even add custom messages or timing measurements to the debugbar for easy debugging of specific parts of your code.

For example, you can log information to the debugbar directly from your code:

// PHP Code

use Debugbar;

// Inspect a variable's value

Debugbar::info($object);

// Log an error message

Debugbar::error('Something went wrong!');

// Send a warning

Debugbar::warning('This is a warning.');

// Add a custom message with a label

Debugbar::addMessage('Processing complete', 'status');

When you reload your page with the debugbar enabled, you’ll see these messages in the “Messages” section of the bar. This helps you verify that certain code is being executed with expected values. Laravel Debugbar is a must-have during development to save time and catch issues early.

Alternative Tip: If you prefer a different debugging experience, the Laravel community also recommends Clockwork (another debugging tool that provides a timeline and data via a browser extension) as an alternative to Debugbar. Both serve similar purposes – choose based on which interface you prefer.

2. Laravel User Verification

User onboarding often requires email verification to ensure valid accounts. The Laravel User Verification package streamlines this process by handling the sending and verification of email confirmation links for new users. This is particularly useful if you’re on a Laravel version that didn’t include built-in email verification (Laravel introduced native email verification in version 5.7, but this package can offer more flexibility or support for older versions).

Key features of Laravel User Verification include customizable email templates, easy integration with Laravel’s authentication system, and the ability to define your verification logic if needed. It works with Laravel’s notification system to send out verification emails containing a signed verification link.

Here’s an example of how you might use this in a user registration flow (assuming the package is installed and configured in your User model and routes):

// PHP Code

use Jrean\UserVerification\Facades\UserVerification;

use Illuminate\Auth\Events\Registered;

public function register(Request $request)

{

    $this->validator($request->all())->validate();

    $user = $this->create($request->all());

    event(new Registered($user));

    // Generate a verification token and send email

    UserVerification::generate($user);

    UserVerification::send($user, 'Please verify your email');

    $this->guard()->login($user);

    return redirect($this->redirectPath());

}

In the snippet above, after creating the new $user, we fire Laravel’s Registered event (for completeness) and then use UserVerification::generate and UserVerification::send to produce a verification token and email it to the user. The email subject here is custom (“Please verify your email”). The user can then click the link in their email to verify their account.

This package saves you from writing the verification token logic, email content, and the controller handling for verification. It’s flexible too – you can override the email notification template to match your app’s branding.

Note: If you are using Laravel’s built-in verification (mustVerifyEmail feature on the User model), you may not need this package. But for older projects or if you require a more tailored verification process, Laravel User Verification is a handy solution.

3. Socialite

Modern applications often allow users to log in using their social network accounts (Google, Facebook, GitHub, etc.) to simplify onboarding. Laravel Socialite, developed by the Laravel team, provides an expressive, fluent interface to OAuth authentication with popular social platforms. This means you can implement “Login with Facebook/Google/etc.” in your app without dealing with the OAuth complexities yourself.

Socialite supports OAuth 2 (and OAuth 1 for a few older platforms) for authentication. Out of the box, it includes drivers for Facebook, Google, Twitter, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and more. There’s also a community-driven Socialite Providers extension for many other services.

Using Socialite typically involves two steps: redirecting the user to the OAuth provider, and then handling the callback to get user information. Socialite makes both steps straightforward. For example, to authenticate with GitHub:

// PHP Code

// Redirect the user to GitHub for authorization

return Socialite::driver('github')->redirect();

After the user authorizes and is redirected back to your app’s callback URL, you can retrieve their details:

// PHP Code

$user = Socialite::driver('github')->user();

// OAuth2: access token and refresh token

$token = $user->token;

$refreshToken = $user->refreshToken; // may not always be provided

$expiresIn = $user->expiresIn;

// All providers

$githubId    = $user->getId();

$name        = $user->getName();

$email       = $user->getEmail();

$avatarUrl   = $user->getAvatar();

In the above snippet, $user is a Laravel\Socialite\Two\User object that contains the information returned by GitHub. You can use this data to log the user into your application or create a corresponding user record in your database.

Laravel Socialite handles all the redirect URLs, state tokens, and OAuth negotiation under the hood, so you can focus on what to do with the user info. It integrates seamlessly with Laravel’s authentication system. This drastically reduces the effort to support multiple login methods. In 2025, allowing social logins is often considered a standard convenience for users, and Socialite remains the go-to package to implement it.

4. Laravel Mix

Building assets (CSS, JavaScript) for your Laravel app can be complex, but Laravel Mix makes it much easier. Laravel Mix provides a clean, fluent API on top of Webpack for defining asset compilation steps. Essentially, Mix lets you set up your frontend build process (compiling Sass/LESS, bundling JS modules, versioning files, etc.) with a few simple methods, without needing to write a full Webpack configuration from scratch.

When you install a new Laravel project (Laravel 8 and earlier), Laravel Mix is included by default and comes pre-configured with a webpack.mix.js file. In Laravel 9 and above, Vite has become the default build tool, but Mix is still widely used in many projects and maintained for backward compatibility or preference.

Using Laravel Mix typically involves editing the webpack.mix.js file at your project root. For example, to compile a JavaScript and a Sass file, your Mix configuration might look like:

// Javascript Code

// webpack.mix.js

let mix = require('laravel-mix');

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js')

   .sass('resources/sass/app.scss', 'public/css')

   .version();

This tells Mix to take your resources/js/app.js and bundle it to public/js/app.js, and to compile resources/sass/app.scss to public/css/app.css. The version() at the end appends a unique hash to filenames for cache-busting (so browsers always load the latest assets after you deploy updates).

To run Mix, you use npm or yarn scripts. For example, npm run dev will compile assets once for development, and npm run watch will monitor files for changes and recompile on the fly. For production builds (minified, etc.), npm run prod is used.

Laravel Mix supports many plugins and options, including handling TypeScript, Vue single-file components, React, PostCSS, and more – all configured through the convenient chaining API instead of a giant config file. It also supports Hot Module Replacement (HMR) and live-reloading via BrowserSync, which speeds up your development when working on front-end code.

Update (2025): As mentioned, newer Laravel versions now use Vite (a build tool using ESBuild/Rollup) by default, citing faster builds and simpler setup. If you’re starting a fresh Laravel 10+ project, you might use Vite. However, Laravel Mix is still fully capable, and you’ll encounter it in many existing codebases. The concepts are similar, and migrating from Mix to Vite is documented if needed. For the purpose of maintaining older projects or if you prefer Webpack’s ecosystem, Mix remains a relevant package.

5. Eloquent Sluggable

Creating URL slugs (human-readable identifiers in URLs, usually based on a title) is a common task for blog posts, products, etc. Eloquent Sluggable is a package that automatically generates unique slugs for your Eloquent models. Instead of manually creating a slug for, say, a Post title each time you save, this package can do it for you, ensuring the slug is URL-friendly and unique in its context.

Key capabilities of Eloquent Sluggable include:

• Defining which field(s) the slug should be derived from (e.g., a title field).
• Configuring the slugging behavior (max length, separator character, whether to update the slug on title changes, etc.).
• Handling duplicates by appending counter numbers or other strategies to keep slugs unique.

To use it, you incorporate a trait and define a method in your model. Here’s a simplified example:

// PHP Code

use Cviebrock\EloquentSluggable\Sluggable;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Post extends Model

{

    use Sluggable;

    protected $fillable = ['title'];  // Let's assume we slug the title

    public function sluggable(): array

    {

        return [

            'slug' => [               // 'slug' is the field on this model for the slug

                'source' => 'title'   // it will be generated from the 'title' field

            ]

        ];

    }

}

Now, whenever you create a new Post or update the title, the slug attribute will be automatically set. For example:

// PHP Code

$post = Post::create(['title' => 'My Awesome Blog Post']);

// $post->slug would be "my-awesome-blog-post"

The package will transform “My Awesome Blog Post” into a URL-friendly format: my-awesome-blog-post. It will also handle collisions; if you create another post with the same title, it might generate my-awesome-blog-post-1 for the slug (configurable behavior).

Eloquent Sluggable saves you from writing the logic to strip special characters, spaces and ensure uniqueness. You can also hook into its process for advanced cases (like using different slug sources or slugging multiple fields). In modern Laravel apps focusing on SEO, clean URLs are important – this package provides that functionality in a plug-and-play manner.

6. Laravel Migrations Generator

If you have an existing database and want to start using Laravel’s migrations, Laravel Migrations Generator automates this for you. This tool scans your database schema and generates Laravel migration files for all your tables, fields, indexes, and foreign keys. It’s incredibly useful for onboarding legacy databases into Laravel or when you’ve done prototyping with a DB and now want migration files.

After installing the package (usually as a dev requirement), you’ll get a new Artisan command to generate migrations. By default, it will create a migration file for each table in the connected database, including the schema of columns and indexes.

Run the command without arguments to generate migrations for all tables:

Bash Code:

php artisan migrate:generate

This will produce migration files in your database/migrations directory corresponding to each table (prefixed with timestamps). The generator will attempt to name them based on the table names.

You can also specify particular tables if you only want to generate migrations for certain parts of the database:

Bash Code:

php artisan migrate:generate --tables="table1,table2"

The above command would limit generation to the table1 and table2 tables. There’s also an –ignore=”tableX,tableY” option to skip specific tables.

After running the generator, you should carefully review the outputted migration files. In most cases, they’re ready to go. You can then run php artisan migrate against an empty database, and it should reconstruct the schema exactly as the original. This is a great starting point for incorporating migrations into projects that didn’t use them from the beginning.

Note: Ensure you back up your database before running any generated migrations on it (especially in production). The migrations generator is meant for creating migration files from an existing schema, not modifying your current database. It’s mostly a read-only operation that outputs code. Also, this package is generally used in development, not something you’d frequently run in a production environment.

7. Laravel Backup

Data loss can be catastrophic. The Laravel Backup package provides an easy way to generate backups of your entire application, including your database and file storage. This package is maintained by Spatie (a well-known contributor of Laravel packages) and is very robust and configurable. It’s essentially a one-stop solution to back up your Laravel project.

With Laravel Backup, you can create a backup with a single Artisan command. By default, a backup will zip up your database dump plus any files you configure (like those in storage/app, public uploads, etc.), and store the zip in a designated directory (often storage/backups). You can also configure it to upload backups to external storage like Amazon S3, Dropbox, etc., for safekeeping.

The simplest usage is just running:

Bash Code:

php artisan backup:run

This will execute the backup according to your configuration (set in config/backup.php after you publish the vendor config). The configuration allows you to specify which disks to use, which directories to include or exclude, how many backups to retain, and so forth.

You can also schedule this command in your App\Console\Kernel.php using Laravel’s scheduler, so that backups occur automatically (e.g., nightly). For example:

PHP Code:

$schedule->command('backup:run')->daily()->at('02:00');

Additionally, the package provides features like notifying you (via email, Slack, etc.) if a backup fails or when it completes, and the ability to clean up old backups to avoid using too much storage.

Laravel Backup gives peace of mind by automating the backup process. It’s especially useful for production applications where you want regular backups maintained without manual effort. Just remember that storing backups off-site (like on cloud storage) is recommended – having your backups on the same server as your application might not help if the server itself fails. This package makes it easy to integrate such best practices into your Laravel app.

8. Laravel IDE Helper

Developers using IDEs like PhpStorm or VS Code often benefit from auto-completion and documentation hints. However, because of Laravel’s use of facades and dynamic magic methods, IDEs might not always know the types and methods available on certain objects. Laravel IDE Helper bridges this gap by generating helper files that describe Laravel’s facades and models in a way IDEs can understand.

When you install this package (barryvdh/laravel-ide-helper), it provides an Artisan command to generate a file (commonly _ide_helper.php) that contains PHPdoc annotations for all of Laravel’s facades and components. You can also generate model-specific PHP docs for your Eloquent models. These annotations do not affect your runtime at all — they are simply for IDE analysis.

Typical usage includes running:

Bash Code:

php artisan ide-helper:generate

This will create the _ide_helper.php file in your project root. You usually don’t commit this file; it’s for your local development convenience. Your IDE will read it for reference. Suddenly, when you type Auth::, you’ll see methods like check(), user(), etc., auto-completing, or Route:: will show route methods, and so on — because the IDE “knows” via that file what static class Auth actually refers to under the hood.

For models, you can do:

Bash Code:

php artisan ide-helper:models "App\Models\Post"

(This can be run for all models at once as well.) It will append PHPDoc blocks to your model classes, listing the properties and relationships. For instance, if your Post model has a title field and a relationship comments(), the IDE helper can insert comments into the Post class like:

// PHP Code

/**

 * App\Models\Post

 * 

 * @property int $id

 * @property string $title

 * @property \Illuminate\Support\Carbon $created_at

 * @property \Illuminate\Support\Carbon $updated_at

 * @property \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection|\App\Models\Comment[] $comments

 * ...

 */

class Post extends Model { ... }

This way, when you call $post->comments in your code, your IDE knows it’s a collection of Comment models, rather than just showing it as a generic property.

In summary, Laravel IDE Helper improves the developer experience by making your IDE “Laravel-aware.” It doesn’t change your actual code or have any effect in production. It’s a purely development-time convenience, but one that can save time by reducing confusion and allowing you to leverage your IDE’s full power. In modern Laravel development (2025), this package is still very useful, although Laravel has improved type-hinting in many areas. Many developers regenerate their IDE helper files whenever they add new models or upgrade Laravel to keep their auto-completion up to date.

Laravel Security Packages

Security is crucial for any application. The following packages help enhance your Laravel app’s security by adding structured roles/permissions and protecting forms from spam bots.

9. Entrust (Roles & Permissions)

Managing user permissions and roles can be complex to implement from scratch. Entrust is a package that provides a straightforward way to add Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to your Laravel application. With Entrust, you can define roles (e.g., Admin, Editor, User) and permissions (e.g., create-post, edit-post, delete-user) and then assign these to users to enforce access rules throughout your app.

When you install Entrust, it will publish migrations to create four tables in your database:

• roles – stores role records (id, name, display_name, description)
• permissions – stores permission records
• role_user – pivot table linking users to roles (many-to-many relationship)
• permission_role – pivot table linking permissions to roles (many-to-many)

After running the migrations, you can use Eloquent models provided by Entrust to create roles and permissions and assign them. For example, creating a new role and assigning it to a user:

// PHP Code

use App\Models\User;

use App\Models\Role;

use App\Models\Permission;

// Create a new role

$adminRole = new Role();

$adminRole->name = 'admin';

$adminRole->display_name = 'Administrator'; // human-friendly name

$adminRole->description  = 'Full access to manage users and settings';

$adminRole->save();

// Assign the role to a user

$user = User::where('email', '[email protected]')->first();

$user->attachRole($adminRole);

Next, define some permissions and attach them to roles:

// PHP Code

$createPostPerm = new Permission();

$createPostPerm->name = 'create-post';

$createPostPerm->display_name = 'Create Posts';

$createPostPerm->description  = 'Permission to create new blog posts';

$createPostPerm->save();

// Give the 'admin' role the 'create-post' permission

$adminRole->attachPermission($createPostPerm);

With roles and permissions in place, you can then use Entrust’s Blade directives or methods to check permissions in your controllers and views. For instance, in a Blade template, you might do:

@role('admin')

    <!-- Content for admins -->

@endrole

@permission('create-post')

    <!-- Show post creation link -->

@endpermission

This will show certain UI elements only if the logged-in user has the specified role or permission.

Entrust was one of the earlier packages for Laravel RBAC and is still functional. However, it’s worth noting that as of 2025, many developers now use Spatie’s Laravel Permission package as a more modern alternative for roles and permissions (Spatie’s package accomplishes similar goals with a slightly different approach and is actively maintained for the latest Laravel versions). Additionally, Laravel’s own Gates and Policies system (built-in) can handle simple role/permission logic without external packages, though packages like Entrust or Spatie’s make a full RBAC implementation easier.

In summary, Entrust will quickly set up the database structure and provide helpers to manage user permissions, making it a solid choice if your app has multiple user roles and complex access control needs.

10. No Captcha (reCAPTCHA Protection)

One of the common security measures in web forms is using CAPTCHAs to prevent automated spam submissions. No Captcha is a Laravel package that integrates Google’s reCAPTCHA (specifically the “No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA”, which is the checkbox-style or invisible reCAPTCHA) into your Laravel application with minimal fuss.

Using No Captcha, you can easily add a Google reCAPTCHA widget to your forms and validate user responses to ensure a human and not a bot submitted the form. This helps protect registration forms, contact forms, comment forms, and so on from spam and abusive scripts.

To use the package, you will need to obtain API keys from Google reCAPTCHA (a site key and a secret key) and configure those in your Laravel .env or config files as required by the package.

Adding the CAPTCHA to a form: In your Blade view, you can output the reCAPTCHA widget with something like:

{!! NoCaptcha::display() !!}

This will render the reCAPTCHA checkbox (or invisible challenge, depending on your settings) in the form. You also include the necessary script tag for the reCAPTCHA API, often via {!! NoCaptcha::renderJs() !!}.

Validating the CAPTCHA: You can validate the CAPTCHA response in your form request validation or controller. If using Laravel’s validation approach, the package provides a rule, or you can manually verify using the facade. For instance:

$request->validate([

    // ... other fields ...

    'g-recaptcha-response' => 'required|captcha'

]);

The ‘captcha’ validation rule is provided by the No Captcha package, which, under the hood, will verify the g-recaptcha-response with Google’s API using your secret key. If the CAPTCHA wasn’t solved, or if it’s missing/incorrect, the validation will fail.

For testing purposes (so that a CAPTCHA challenge doesn’t block your automated tests), you might mock the verification. The package allows something like:

// PHP Code

NoCaptcha::shouldReceive('verifyResponse')->andReturn(true);

// Then simulate a form post in a test

$response = $this->post('/register', [

    'name' => 'Test User',

    'email' => '[email protected]',

    // ... other fields ...

    'g-recaptcha-response' => 'token', // In test, we just provide a dummy value

]);

By mocking verifyResponse to return true, you bypass the actual Google verification in a testing environment.

Overall, No Captcha makes it very easy to drop Google’s reCAPTCHA into Laravel. It abstracts the inclusion of the script and the handling of the response token. The result is improved security against bots with very little code on your part. Just remember to configure your site and secret keys, and you’ll be able to protect forms in no time. In today’s environment, where bots are increasingly sophisticated, using a CAPTCHA for public forms is often a necessary step to maintain the quality and security of user-submitted content.

Laravel Admin Panel Packages

Building an admin panel from scratch can be repetitive. These packages provide pre-built admin interfaces or tools to rapidly construct admin dashboards for managing your application’s data. They typically include UI scaffolding, CRUD generators, and form builders to create an admin backend with minimal coding.

11. Voyager

Voyager is a popular package for Laravel that provides a ready-made admin panel so you can start managing your app’s data immediately. It’s often described as “The Missing Laravel Admin”. With Voyager, you get a beautifully designed admin interface with features like: a menu builder, media manager (for uploading and organizing images/files), CRUD interface generator (called BREAD: Browse, Read, Edit, Add, Delete), and much more out-of-the-box.

Once you install Voyager, you can run its installer command to set it up. It will create necessary tables (for admin menu, settings, etc.) and even provide you with a default admin user. The interface is quite user-friendly, so non-developers on your team could use it to manage content.

Some highlights of Voyager include:

• Bread/CRUD Generator: You can define “data types” in Voyager, which correspond to Eloquent models or database tables. Voyager then allows creating, reading, updating, and deleting entries in those tables through the admin UI without writing CRUD controllers manually.
• Menu Builder: Easily manage the menus of the admin (and you can even use it for frontend menus if desired).
• Media Manager: An interface to upload images and files that can be used in your content.
• Settings: A section to manage application settings (stored in the database) via a GUI.
• Dummy Data: It can even optionally install some dummy data (like posts, categories) for you to see how things work.

To get started, typically you would do: composer require tcg/voyager, migrate, then run php artisan voyager:install. After that, visiting /admin (or your specified admin URL) will bring up the Voyager admin panel.

Voyager is great if you need a quick admin panel for tasks like managing users, posts, or any data entity. It’s also quite customizable — you can override views and add custom actions. However, note that Voyager’s development had slowed at times; as of 2025, it supports Laravel 8 and above (community contributions help keep it up to date). It’s a good solution for small-to-medium projects or as a starting point for larger admin sections.

(Another noteworthy mention in this space is Laravel Nova – Laravel’s official admin panel (commercial) – and Filament (an open-source admin panel toolkit rising in popularity). Nova provides a polished experience tightly integrated with Laravel, and Filament offers a modern, extensible approach. If Voyager doesn’t fit your needs, these are two alternatives to consider.)

12. LaraAdmin

LaraAdmin is another open-source Laravel package that provides an admin panel and CRUD generator. It’s marketed as a CRM and admin panel for quick-starting applications. With LaraAdmin, you can generate modules (CRUD interfaces for your models) through a graphical interface or commands, and it includes features like form generation, module relationships, file uploads, and a role/permission management system.

After installing LaraAdmin, it provides a GUI for creating modules. You define fields (including their types, validations, etc.), and LaraAdmin will generate the necessary migrations, models, controllers, and views for that module. This means you can set up basic CRUD for a data model without writing those files manually.

Some key features:

• Module/CRUD Generator: Through the admin UI, add a new module (say “Projects” with fields like name, description, etc.), and it scaffolds the code.
• Online Code Editor: The admin panel includes a section to edit the generated module fields or form display settings on the fly.
• Form & Field Management: A variety of field types (text, dropdown, checkbox, date, etc.) are supported in generated forms.
• File Uploads: This has a mechanism for uploading and managing files and attaching them to records.
• Role & Permission Control: Comes with a basic RBAC system to limit which admin users can see/edit which modules.

Once you run LaraAdmin’s installation (via php artisan la:install), you’ll have an admin panel (often at /admin) and a default admin user. From there, you can use the UI to start designing your app’s data structure.

For example, to create a new module for “Tasks”, you could go into the Modules section of LaraAdmin, enter “Task” and add fields like “Title (string)”, “Due Date (date)”, “Completed (boolean)”, etc. LaraAdmin will generate a migration for the tasks table and controllers, and you’ll immediately see a “Tasks” menu item in the admin where you can create/edit/delete tasks.

LaraAdmin, being a bit older, supports up to Laravel 7 or 8 (its popularity peaked a few years ago). It’s pretty handy for rapid prototyping or internal tools. GitHub shows it’s community-maintained, so check for Laravel version compatibility if you are on the latest version. If kept up-to-date, it can save a lot of time building admin functionality. However, if you need a more current solution, you might look into packages like Filament (mentioned earlier) or Orchid (below), which have gained momentum more recently.

13. Orchid

Orchid is a robust package for Laravel that allows developers to create custom admin panels and back-office applications with a lot of flexibility. It’s less of a plug-and-play “here’s an admin UI” like Voyager, and more of a framework or toolkit for building your admin section quickly. This means Orchid might require a bit more coding than something like Voyager, but with greater flexibility in design and structure of your admin interface.

Key features of Orchid:

• Screen Layouts: Orchid introduces the concept of “Screens” – basically, page templates for your admin views. It provides a fluent API to define what fields, tables, or charts appear on a screen. For example, you can define a screen for a list of records with filters and actions in pure PHP (no need to hand-code the Blade for the list view).
• Form Widgets: It has a collection of ready-made form fields (text inputs, textareas, selects, date pickers, etc.), and you can define forms using a PHP structure, which Orchid will render for you in the UI.
• CRUD Operations: While you have to write some code, Orchid streamlines CRUD by letting you define how data is fetched and saved in a structured way.
• Permissions System: Orchid integrates a simple permissions mechanism that you can tie into your Laravel authorization.
• Front-End Themes: It comes with a default UI (built with Tailwind CSS) that is clean and modern. You can customize the view layers if needed.

A simple example: suppose you want to create an admin section for managing “Products”. In Orchid, you would create a ProductScreen class extending Orchid\Screen\Screen. In that class, you might have:

// PHP Code

class ProductListScreen extends Screen
{
    public $name = 'Products';
    public $description = 'All products in the inventory';
    public function query(): array {
        return [
            'products' => Product::paginate()
        ];
    }
    public function commandBar(): array {
        return [
            Link::make('Add Product')->route('platform.product.create')
        ];
    }
    public function layout(): array {
        return [
            Layout::table('products', [
                TD::make('id'),
                TD::make('name'),
                TD::make('price'),
                // ... define other columns and possibly action buttons
            ])
       ];
    }
}

This might not be fully complete, but it shows the idea: you define how to get data (query()), what actions to show (commandBar() for top buttons/links), and what layout to use (in this case, a table of products with certain columns). Orchid will then render this screen at the appropriate route (Orchid uses a platform prefix by default for admin routes).

Orchid shines in projects where the requirements for the admin UI are custom. It doesn’t force a particular data structure; you can design everything via code. It is great for developers who want control and are comfortable writing a bit of code for their admin panel rather than relying on UI generators. Because it’s actively maintained, Orchid stays up-to-date with Laravel versions and best practices.

To summarize, Orchid is a powerful choice if you need an admin panel that behaves more like a bespoke application. It’s like building your admin interface but with lots of components provided to you by the package. This is in contrast to Voyager or LaraAdmin, which provide a full interface with minimal coding but less flexibility. Depending on your project’s needs, Orchid can be an excellent foundation for a complex admin dashboard or even a CMS.

(Also note: The Laravel ecosystem has other admin/CMS oriented packages, e.g., Statamic or NovemberCMS for content management, but Orchid is specifically a general toolkit for any kind of back-office app.)

Laravel Ecommerce Packages

If you’re building an online store or adding e-commerce functionality to your Laravel application, these packages can give you a huge head start. They provide product management, shopping cart, checkout, and other typical e-commerce features out of the box.

14. Bagisto

Bagisto is a free, open-source eCommerce platform built on Laravel. It’s more than just a package – it’s a full application (you can create a new project with Bagisto or integrate components of it into an existing Laravel app). Bagisto gained a lot of attention in the Laravel community for offering a comprehensive e-commerce solution that developers can customize.

Out of the box, Bagisto provides:

• Product Management: Create different types of products (simple, configurable with variants, etc.), manage inventory, SKUs, pricing, and product attributes.
• Category Management: Organize products into categories.
• Shopping Cart & Checkout: Ready-made cart and checkout process functionality with support for multiple payment gateways.
• Customer Management: Customer registration, profiles, and addresses.
• Orders & Fulfillment: Order history, order statuses, invoices, shipment tracking, etc.
• Multi-Currency and Localization: Support for multiple currencies and languages (important for global stores).
• Multi-Warehouse Inventory: Manage stock across multiple warehouse locations.
• Admin Panel: Bagisto comes with its admin UI for managing all the above features (products, categories, sales, configuration settings, etc.).

Since Bagisto is essentially a Laravel application, you can either start a new project with Bagisto (via Composer create-project or cloning their repository) or install it into an existing Laravel project. Many developers use it as a starting point and then customize the front-end or specific business logic.

For instance, to get started quickly, you might do:

Bash Code:

composer create-project bagisto/bagisto

This will set up a new Laravel project with Bagisto pre-installed. After setting up your environment (database, etc.), you migrate and you’ll have a functioning e-commerce site with an admin panel.

Bagisto’s frontend by default uses Bootstrap and is fully functional, but you can customize the views to match your design. The admin panel is quite extensive and allows managing the store without touching code for common tasks.

One attractive feature is that Bagisto is modular – you can add or remove components, and it has an extension marketplace. For example, if you need a specific payment gateway integration or a feature like a multi-vendor marketplace, there might be an extension available.

Given that Bagisto is a full-fledged solution, it might be overkill if you only need a small shop integrated into an existing app. But for anyone wanting to launch an online store with Laravel, Bagisto can save months of development time, handling complex things like order workflows and product attribute systems out of the box.

(Alternative: Aimeos is another powerful Laravel e-commerce package worth mentioning. It provides a very feature-rich and scalable e-commerce system that can be plugged into Laravel. Depending on your needs, you might evaluate both Bagisto and Aimeos for Laravel e-commerce.)

15. AvoRed

AvoRed is an open-source Laravel shopping cart and e-commerce framework. It provides the basic e-commerce components such as product catalog, shopping cart, and order management, while also focusing on being lightweight and customizable. AvoRed is a bit more minimalistic compared to Bagisto; you can think of it as a toolkit to assemble an online store rather than a complete out-of-the-box store.

Features of AvoRed include:

• Product Catalog: Define products, categories, attributes (like size, color), etc.
• Shopping Cart: Add to cart, update quantities, remove items, etc., handled for you.
• Checkout Process: A basic checkout flow (which you can customize), including collecting customer info, shipping, and payment.
• Order Management: Capture orders and manage order statuses.
• User Management: If you allow customers to register, it has customer accounts, or you can use it with guest checkouts.
• Admin Interface: AvoRed comes with an admin panel to manage products, categories, orders, etc., though simpler than something like Bagisto’s admin.

One of AvoRed’s design philosophies is modularity. It provides core functionality but expects developers to tweak it according to their needs. For example, the default front-end is provided (built with Vue.js for storefront), but you are encouraged to modify the front-end to suit your design or integrate AvoRed’s backend with your front-end.

To use AvoRed, you typically install it into an existing Laravel project. After requiring the package via Composer, you’d run installation commands that publish configs, run migrations for e-commerce tables (products, orders, etc.), and set up the basic data.

For instance:

Bash Code:

composer require avored/framework

php artisan avored:install

The install command will guide you through creating an admin user and setting up initial data. After that, you can access the admin panel (often at /admin) to start adding products or adjusting settings.

Because AvoRed is open-source and on GitHub, you can extend it. It’s common to write additional features or integrate packages (like for payment gateways) as needed. The package itself covers the essentials so you don’t have to build the cart and order system from scratch.

In summary, AvoRed is a good starting point if you need a shopping cart in your Laravel app without the complexity of a full e-commerce platform. It handles the fundamentals and provides an admin UI, but leaves a lot of room (and need) for customization. For developers who want more control and are perhaps building a somewhat unique e-commerce experience, AvoRed can be preferable to a heavier solution. On the other hand, if you need a wide array of features immediately (marketing features, advanced inventory, etc.), a larger solution like Bagisto (or others) might be more appropriate.

Laravel SEO Packages

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is important to ensure your Laravel application’s content is discoverable and well-presented in search engine results. The following packages help manage meta tags, SEO metadata, and other SEO-related tasks in a Laravel app.

16. Laravel Meta Manager

Laravel Meta Manager is a package focused on managing the meta tags of your Laravel website. Meta tags (like the page title, description, keywords, Open Graph tags for Facebook, Twitter Card tags for Twitter, etc.) play a significant role in SEO and how your pages appear when shared on social media.

This package provides a convenient way to set and output meta tags. It comes pre-configured with many standard meta tags: Standard SEO tags (title, description, keywords), Dublin Core, Google+ (now defunct, but at the time it included it), Facebook Open Graph, Twitter Cards, etc. Essentially, it can handle all the typical metadata you might want to include in your <head> section.

After installing the package, you typically register its service provider and facade. The usage pattern is often to configure some default meta values (like site name, default description) and then, within your controllers or view composers, set specific meta tags for each page.

For example, to set a title and description for a page, you might do:

// PHP Code

Meta::setTitle('My Example Title');
Meta::setDescription('This is my example description');

The package will handle placing these into the appropriate meta tags in the output. In your layout Blade file, you’ll include a line to render all meta tags:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html lang="en">

<head>

    <meta charset="UTF-8">

    <title>{{ Meta::getTitle() }}</title>

    {!! Meta::tag('description') !!}

    {!! Meta::tag('keywords') !!}

    {!! Meta::tag('og:title') !!}

    <!-- etc., or a method to output all tags at once -->

</head>

<body>

    ...

(Laravel Meta Manager may also provide a blade include or a method to output a chunk of tags all at once.)

In fact, the package documentation suggests using a Blade include like:

@include('meta::manager')

By default, that includes will output all the meta tags that have been set (using the configuration defaults or any overrides you made via Meta::set… calls). If you need to override or set certain meta values on the fly for a specific page, you can pass them into the include:

@include('meta::manager', [

    'title' => 'My Example Title',

    'description' => 'This is my example description',

    'image' => 'https://example.com/path/to/image.jpg'

])

This would set those values just for this render.

Laravel Meta Manager centralizes the meta tag management so you don’t have to sprinkle meta tag definitions across different views. It ensures consistency (for example, appending a suffix like the site name to all titles, if configured to do so). This is very useful for SEO because you can easily audit and adjust your site’s meta tags from one place.

Keep in mind SEO involves more than just meta tags (content quality, performance, mobile-friendliness, etc.), but managing meta tags properly is a quick win. For example, making sure each page has a unique descriptive title and meta description can improve click-through from search results. This package doesn’t automatically generate meta content for you, but it provides a structure to set and reuse it.

17. SEOTools

SEOTools is a comprehensive SEO helper for Laravel, often cited as Artesaos SEOTools (as Artesaos is the group that maintains it). This package provides a set of tools to manage different SEO metadata easily, including meta tags, Open Graph, Twitter Cards, JSON-LD schema, and even generating sitemaps.

SEOTools actually bundles a few components:

• SEOMeta – for basic meta tags (title, description, etc.).
• OpenGraph – for Facebook Open Graph tags.
• TwitterCards – for Twitter card tags.
• JSON-LD – for structured data (SEO rich snippets).
• Sitemap – for generating sitemap XML (optional add-on).

The usage is typically via a facade or an SEO class you can resolve via the container. For instance:

// PHP Code

use SEOMeta;
use OpenGraph;
use Twitter;
use JsonLd;
SEOMeta::setTitle('Page Title');
SEOMeta::setDescription('Page description here');
SEOMeta::addKeyword(['laravel', 'seo', 'optimization']);
OpenGraph::setTitle('Page Title');
OpenGraph::setDescription('Page description here');
OpenGraph::setUrl(url()->current());
OpenGraph::addProperty('type', 'article');

// etc.

Twitter::setTitle('Page Title');
Twitter::setSite('@YourTwitterHandle');

After setting up the values in your controller or service, you then echo them in your Blade view (often in the head section). SEOTools provides a convenience method to generate all tags at once:

{!! SEOMeta::generate() !!}
{!! OpenGraph::generate() !!}
{!! Twitter::generate() !!}
{!! JsonLd::generate() !!}

Or there is a SEO::generate() that covers all, if you prefer to use a single facade.

The nice thing about SEOTools is that it covers multiple platforms in one go. For example, calling setTitle on SEOMeta, OpenGraph, and Twitter separately might be done behind the scenes if you use the SEO facade. The package can automatically append site names to titles, manage maximum lengths (Google typically displays only a certain number of characters of a title/description), etc., based on configuration.

For dynamic pages like articles, you might integrate it such that when viewing an Article model, you do something like:

SEOMeta::setTitle($article->title);
SEOMeta::setDescription(Str::limit($article->body, 150));
OpenGraph::setUrl(route('articles.show', $article));
OpenGraph::addImage($article->featured_image_url);
...

This ensures that each article page has appropriate meta tags.

SEOTools being supported by both Laravel and Lumen means it doesn’t assume a full Laravel app (so it’s quite flexible). It’s a fairly popular package as it consolidates a lot of SEO needs. In 2025, having proper Open Graph and Twitter card tags is important for social media sharing (so that when someone shares your link, it shows a nice preview with image and description). JSON-LD is important for SEO if you want to include structured data (for example, marking up an article with author, publish date, etc., which can help with Google’s rich results).

Using SEOTools can significantly ease the maintenance of these tags. Instead of writing meta tags in each Blade file or writing custom logic to assemble them, you use a fluent, chainable interface in PHP to set what you need and let the package output the correct HTML.

18. Laravel-SEO

Laravel-SEO is another package aimed at managing SEO meta tags in Laravel applications. It focuses on simplifying the process of inserting, editing, and removing meta tags, including those needed for social media previews and structured data.

While it has a similar end goal to the previous two packages, its approach might differ slightly in API or features. For instance, some Laravel-SEO packages allow you to define meta templates for certain models or routes (like automatically using an article’s title and an excerpt for meta description, unless overridden).

Typical features could include:

• Setting a meta title, description, and keywords easily.
• Managing Open Graph and Twitter tags (perhaps automatically using the meta title/description if not explicitly set).
• Possibly integration with models, such as a trait that can generate SEO fields for a model (for example, if each model has an SEO title and description stored in the database, you could automatically use those).
• Rendering all the tags in views with a linear.

For example, using a generic Laravel-SEO (hypothetically):

SEO::setTitle($product->name);
SEO::setDescription($product->summary);
SEO::opengraph()->setImage($product->image_url);

And in the Blade layout:

{!! SEO::generate() !!}

This would output something like:

<title>Product Name – My Store</title>

<meta name="description" content="This product is ...">

<meta property="og:title" content="Product Name – My Store" />

<meta property="og:description" content="This product is ..." />

<meta property="og:image" content="http://mystore.com/images/product.jpg" />

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image" />

<!-- etc -->

The value of Laravel-SEO packages is that they centralize SEO logic. If tomorrow you want to change how your titles are formatted (say, append “– MyStore” to all titles), you could do that in one config or one spot, rather than editing multiple views. They also often prevent you from forgetting important tags on certain pages.

Given that multiple packages exist with similar names, it’s good to check the one referenced by Cloudways. It appears to be a specific one with moderate popularity (star count ~524 at the time). It likely provides an easy interface and maybe supports features like generating a sitemap or meta tags for multiple languages.

Overall, using a package like Laravel-SEO ensures that your application’s SEO metadata is handled systematically. It’s one of those things that doesn’t affect the functionality for users directly, but can influence your site performance on search engines and how enticing it looks when shared on social platforms. As of 2025, search engines still heavily use meta titles and descriptions for displaying results, and social platforms use Open Graph tags for link previews – so managing them properly is definitely worth the effort.

(Beyond meta tags, also consider generating an XML sitemap for your site; some SEO packages or separate ones can help with that, ensuring search engines can easily crawl all your links.)

Laravel Debugging Packages

Even with all the tools and tests in the world, debugging is an inevitable part of development. Laravel provides some built-in debugging (like detailed error pages via Ignition), but these packages take it further by giving insight into the application’s runtime behavior.

19. Laravel Telescope

Laravel Telescope is an official Laravel debugging assistant that provides deep insights into what’s happening in your application during development. It’s like a debug panel (somewhat comparable to Debugbar) but presented as a separate dashboard application. When Telescope is enabled, it records information about each request and lets you review it at your leisure via a web interface (typically at /telescope route in your app).

What Telescope tracks for each request (and also scheduled commands, queue jobs, etc.):

• Requests: Request method, URL, status code, duration, and all input data (except sensitive information).
• Database Queries: Every DB query executed, with bindings and time taken. You can easily find slow queries or see N+1 query issues by looking at an excessive number of queries.
• Exceptions: Any exceptions thrown (even if caught) can be logged, with stack traces.
• Logs: Any log entries (info, warning, error) that your app generates.
• Queue Jobs: Details about queued job execution (when they start, finish, fail, or retry).
• Scheduled Tasks: The outcome of any scheduled cron jobs (if they ran, their output, etc.).
• Mail: Emails that were sent (with subject, recipients, etc., and even a preview of content).
• Notifications: Notifications dispatched (and whether via mail, database, etc.).
• Cache: When cache entries are written or read.
• Redis: If you’re using Redis, commands are sent to Redis.
• Dump/Var Dumps: Telescope can capture data dumped (so dump() calls in code appear in Telescope, not break your JSON responses).
• …and more (like model events, etc., depending on configuration).

Telescope provides a UI where you can filter and search through this data. For example, you can filter to see only requests that resulted in an exception, or search all logged queries for a specific table name, etc. This is invaluable for debugging tricky issues.

To use Telescope, you install it via Composer (it comes with Laravel by default in the composer.json require-dev for new applications). Then run php artisan telescope:install and migrate. This sets up the necessary database tables to store Telescope’s data and publishes its assets. Typically, you’d only enable Telescope in your local environment (and maybe staging). It’s not recommended to run on production because it can collect sensitive data and also consume resources. There are filters to disable certain data collection or purge data after a certain time.

Using Telescope is as simple as navigating to the Telescope dashboard in your browser. For example, after loading a page on your app, you can go to http://your-app.test/telescope and see the entry for that request and drill down into all the queries and logs it produced. It provides a real-time view when open — you can watch as new requests come in or jobs get processed.

In essence, Laravel Telescope is like having a black box recorder for your application while you develop. It greatly helps in understanding how your code is executing, especially in complex scenarios or when debugging performance issues. Many developers keep it on during development to catch issues early. In 2025, Telescope is a mature tool and has become a staple in the toolkit for Laravel developers working on non-trivial apps.

(Another debugging tool in Laravel’s ecosystem is Laravel Horizon for queues, which monitors Redis queue jobs, but that’s more for queue management than general debugging. For general runtime debugging, Telescope is the primary official tool.)

Laravel Testing Packages

Laravel has excellent built-in testing support (PHPUnit integration, helper methods, etc.). However, when developing packages or wanting to extend testing capabilities, you might use additional tools. Below is one important package for package development, plus a note on a newer testing framework.

20. Orchestral Testbench

Orchestral Testbench is a package that makes it easier to write tests for Laravel packages (as opposed to Laravel applications). Suppose you’re developing a Laravel package (which is code that will be plugged into a Laravel app). In that case, you need a way to run tests against it without having a full Laravel application around. Testbench provides a fake Laravel environment to run your package’s tests as if they were inside a Laravel application.

Using Testbench, you can simulate a Laravel application in your PHPUnit tests. It takes care of bootstrapping a minimal app, loading your package’s service providers and aliases, and any configuration you need. This way, you can write tests for your package’s features (like facades, container bindings, etc.) confidently.

To set it up, you’ll require orchestra/testbench as a dev dependency in your package. Then, your test classes will typically extend Orchestra\Testbench\TestCase instead of the usual Laravel TestCase. You may override a method like getPackageProviders and getPackageAliases in your test class to specify which service providers (namely, your package’s service provider) to load for the tests.

Example test skeleton for a hypothetical package:

// PHP Code

use Orchestra\Testbench\TestCase;
use Your\Package\YourPackageServiceProvider;
class ExampleFeatureTest extends TestCase
{
    protected function getPackageProviders($app)
    {
        return [YourPackageServiceProvider::class];
    }
    public function test_it_does_something()
    {
        // Arrange: perhaps set up some config or environment
        // Act: call a function or feature from your package
        $result = YourPackageFacade::doSomething();
        // Assert: check the outcome
        $this->assertEquals('expected', $result);
    }
}

By specifying the service provider, the Testbench will boot up a Laravel instance, register your package as if it were installed in the app, and then your test runs within that context. You can use all of Laravel’s testing helpers (for example, you can use the HTTP testing methods to simulate requests if your package registers routes, or use database migrations if your package uses the DB, etc.).

Testbench essentially saves you from having to create a dummy Laravel app in your tests directory manually to test your package. It’s widely used by package developers, including the Laravel core team, for testing official packages.

Beyond Testbench, a mention for 2025 in testing: Pest PHP is a relatively new testing framework that’s become quite popular in the Laravel community. Pest is built on top of PHPUnit but offers a simpler, more fluent syntax for writing tests (it does away with classical class test structures and uses functions for tests, yielding a syntax similar to Jest (JavaScript) or RSpec (Ruby) style). As of Laravel 9/10, Pest can be used out of the box (the Laravel installer even offers to set up Pest). While Pest is not a “package” in the sense of extending Laravel’s functionality, it’s a dev dependency that many Laravel projects now include to write cleaner tests. It’s something to consider if you find PHPUnit syntax verbose.

In conclusion, Orchestral Testbench is indispensable for Laravel package development testing, ensuring your packages are solid before they’re used in real apps. And for Laravel app testing in general, tools like Pest can enhance the developer experience, although Laravel’s built-in testing tools are already quite powerful.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve explored a curated list of 20 Laravel packages spanning development utilities, security enhancements, admin panel generators, e-commerce platforms, SEO optimization, debugging tools, and testing frameworks. Each of these packages can significantly boost productivity and add robust features to your Laravel projects with minimal effort. By leveraging these pre-built solutions, Laravel developers and teams can focus more on the unique aspects of their application rather than reimplementing common functionalities.

When choosing a Laravel package, keep in mind:

• Compatibility: Ensure the package supports your Laravel version (Laravel evolves quickly; most packages keep up, but it’s worth checking).
• Community & Maintenance: Active packages (like those by Spatie or Laravel’s team) tend to be well-maintained and reliable. Check the repository for recent updates.
• Purpose Fit: Use packages for what they excel at. For example, use Socialite for OAuth logins instead of writing your own OAuth flows, or use a ready admin panel if you need to get an admin interface up quickly. But avoid overloading your app with packages you don’t truly need – sometimes a simple custom solution is sufficient if your use case is very specific.

As of 2025, the Laravel ecosystem continues to grow. New packages and tools emerge regularly, and the “best” choices may evolve. For instance, we noted alternatives like Spatie Laravel-Permission (for roles/permissions), Laravel Jetstream (an official starter kit that includes auth, two-factor auth, team management, etc.), Laravel Horizon (for queue monitoring), and Pest (for testing) – these are all popular in the community and might be the preferred choices in their domains. Always consider the current state of the ecosystem and evaluate if a newer package better suits your needs.

By incorporating the packages discussed above into your workflow, you can speed up development, ensure higher code quality, and add complex features with confidence. Laravel’s strength has always been its community, and these packages are a testament to that collaborative spirit. Happy coding, and may your Laravel apps be ever more feature-rich and maintainable with the help of these tools.