Features difference between Laravel and Lumen

Question

My php skill is intermediate, I have to create one custom application and it is in mid level range. I like to use any framework since I don't have much time. I heard about Laravel & lumen both have less learning curve. I tried to read both documentation, But I can't determine exact feature difference between them. Can anyone please tabular those features. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Lumen is not designed to replace Laravel, rather, it is a more specialized (and stripped-down) framework designed for micro-services and APIs. It took away unneeded features for an API such as HTTP sessions and cookies, and also limited the number of configuration options. Out-of-the-box, Lumen sacrified the flexibility of Laravel for speed.

However, you can add Laravel components to Lumen to extend it, so it can be used for more than just micro-services and API. However, if your goal is to extend Lumen to become a website, you might as well use Laravel instead.

They also have different use cases. Lumen and Laravel are meant to work together. For APIs and services are frequently get called, use Lumen. For user-facing applications, use Laravel.

Quote from Matt Stauffer:

Lumen has the same foundation as Laravel, and many of the same components. But Lumen is built for microservices, not so much for user-facing applications (although it can be used for anything.) As such, frontend niceties like Bootstrap and Elixir and the authentication bootstrap and sessions don't come enabled out of the box, and there's less flexibility for extending and changing the bootstrap files.