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Ajeeb.K.P
Ajeeb.K.P

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Laravel and Django similar concepts

Intro

In this article, I'm going to list down few conceptually similar concepts in Laravel and Django web frameworks.

Contents

  • Architecture
  • the console
  • Starting a dev server
  • Tinker vs shell
  • blade template vs django templates
  • routes vs urls
  • sessions
  • request and response objects
  • Writing a custom command
  • Migrations
Background

I'm a Django developer for most of my career. I recently got a chance to work with Laravel framework. This article is based on the two experiences combined.

Disclaimer

As we know, both frameworks are powered by two different programming languages. So, both of them tend to act like an extension of their parent framework. So there are a lot of differences and syntax favor-ism for sure.

This is article doesn't try to do a concrete evaluation of each concepts. Instead, the similarity felt by me is explained here in a semi-formal language.

Architecture

Laravel is an MVC framework. Django is an MTV framework. Below table lists a shorter description of what each letters stands for (note, I use Laravel concept/letter first then Django concept/letter).

Concept Usage in Larvel & Django
M vs M Used in respective ORMs(Eloquent ORM and Django ORM), represents Database objects, configure table name
V vs T Templates rendered into Response objects
C vs V Validation of data, returning Response objects

Controller or View is decided by patterns in Routes / urls respectivly. Also, we can see both Routes / urls are having name attribute. This name attribute can be used in templates for retrieving actual url of required page.

The console

Both Laravel and Django have a console helpers to ease developement.

Laravel Django
php artisan python manage.py

As you can see both artisan and manage.py and are two files created by their project scaffolding. And both of them prints the help and list of commands.

Starting a dev server

Both Laravel and Django have a dev server. And to my surprise both points to same address by default ie. http://127.0.0.1:8000

Laravel Django
php artisan serve python manage.py runserver

Shell

Both Laravel and Django provide an interactive shell/REPL.

Laravel Django
php artisan tinker python manage.py shell

Blade template vs django templates

In fact, both templates differe a lot. This is due to the fact that, Blade templates are trying to adore PHP where as Django templates adore python.

Still we can a lot of similar things here and there

Laravel Django
{{ $variable }} {{ variable }}
@include('foo.bar') {% include "foo/bar.html" %}
@extends('layouts.app') {% extends "layouts/app.html" %}
@csrf {% csrf_token %}

Routes vs urls

Conceptually routes and urls are a lot differ. Routes allow a lot of flexibilities like allowing selection of method, auth, throttling, middleware etc. But, urls only allow patterns.

Similarities includes option to pass parameters vis url pattern, a name for identifying particular pattern

Laravel Django
Route::get('/user/{id}',... path('articles/<int:year>/'
Route::get('/articles....)->name('articles') path('articles/', view, name='articles')
routes('articles') {% urls 'articles' %}

sessions and cookies

We can similarity how sessions and cookies accessed/set in Laravel and Django

Laravel Django
$request->session()->get('key') request.session.get('key')
$value = $request->cookie('name'); value = request.get_signed_cookie('name')

Request and Response objects

Both Laravel and Django has concept of Rquest and Response objects with similar parts.

Laravel Django
$value = $request->header('X-Header-Name'); value = request.header('X-Header-Name')
$uri = $request->path(); path = request.path
$method = $request->method(); method = request.method
$file = $request->file('photo'); file = request.FILES['photo']

Writing a custom command

Despite of instructions to create commands differ. Both have concept of creating custom command, also supports passing arguements along with the command.

Migrations

Laravel and Django supports creation of database migrations. Both Laravel and Django create a migration table to track, what migrations are already run.

Laravel Django
php artisan make:migration add_local_table python manage.py makemigrations
php artisan migrate python manage.py migrate
php artisan migrate --help python manage.py migrate --help
--database[=DATABASE] The database connection to use --database DATABASE Nominates a database to synchronize. Defaults to the "default" database.
--env[=ENV] The environment the command should run under --settings SETTINGS The Python path to a settings module, e.g. "myproject.settings.main".

Note, comparison between --env and --settings is not perfect. But, this has similar impacts in some cases like having different DATABASE, CACHING etc. in different environment like production/staging/local. Using django-environ will make Django more parity with --env.

Conclusion

Laravel and Django has a lot of similar concepts.

Reference

If you are interested in learning any of those frameworks. Their official websites are the best place to refer. Here are my favorite resources for both.

Top comments (1)

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terencetwuo profile image
Terence Thian

Thank you. It's a big help.