The decision is generally based on needs, “we are not going to reinvent the wheel” if what we want is a wheel, in other words, if we have specific needs that must be covered and cannot be covered with the available development standards, we will have We have to find a customized solution for our needs.
Advantages of custom development
There are many CMS used today (Wordpress, Prestashop...) that cover the basic needs of a corporate website or an online store with a fairly affordable development cost. functionality of the website, however, its scalability and customization capacity are quite limited, and they stick to internal structures.
On the other hand, CMS can present a series of risks when they are not managed professionally , since there is a wide variety of free plugins that can present a vulnerability if we do not have sufficient knowledge to manage them. In these cases, it is better to have web maintenance with a specialized custom software development company that takes care of these tasks and avoids these types of problems, which in many cases can be large-scale.
Custom solutions solve the scalability problems of an application and the access and customization of the code , since we have full control of all parts of the application, and the security will be more robust since we control the security logic of the application. application and is not implemented by third parties.
Cons of custom programming
Like everything, custom programming has its good points and its bad points. We must choose carefully what type of development we need when proposing a project, since "we do not have to kill flies with cannon fire" or "empty the sea with glasses."
Custom development is more expensive in its initial phase and requires more time in its development since you have to specify the need and “build the house from the foundations.” However, once the planning and software development services stage has been crossed, the use and maintenance of these applications is smaller and more flexible and can be easily scaled and integrated with other services and applications.
Frameworks
Many of you may be wondering what a framework is and “what” this comes from. Frameworks are a set of already programmed utilities or modules that are based on native programming in a technology and “evolve” the base language to make it more operational and modular.
The advantages of developing with Frameworks is that we also have access to all the code and, in addition, it is developed with standards that allow us to organize the project and facilitate its future maintenance and scalability.
On the other hand, this code is generated, verified and updated by a huge community of expert programmers, so security gaps are continually being analyzed and resolved.
Laravel, what is it?
Its philosophy is to develop PHP code in an elegant and simple way based on an MVC (Model-View-Controller) model.
On its website https://laravel.com/ we will find extensive and organized documentation that will make the work of developers much easier and more effective. This framework is constantly maintained and expanded by its developers, which ensures the continuity and security of the framework with regular updates.
How does Laravel work? Some of the features:
The most notable features that Laravel provides are the following:
Blade: Blade is a templating system for creating views in Laravel. This allows you to extend created templates and sections in other views in which we will also have accessible variables and with the possibility of using PHP code in them, in addition, linked to the use of bootstrap or other popular HTML will generate results optimized for different devices (Mobiles, Tablets , PC's, etc.).
Eloquent: Eloquent is the ORM that Laravel includes to easily and simply manage the processes corresponding to database management in our project. It transforms SQL queries to an MVC system, which does not allow us to process SQL queries directly and thus protect us from SQL injection.
Routing: Laravel provides a route organization and management system that allows us to exhaustively control the routes in our system.
Middlewares: They are a type of controllers that are executed before and after a request to the server, which allows us to insert multiple controls, validations or processes at these points in the application flow.
Community and documentation: A great point to highlight about this framework is the great community and documentation that exists, an active community of professionals that provides knowledge and functionalities, in addition to testing new versions and detecting flaws in the framework, which gives security to the framework. . And very complete and quality documentation designed for the developers themselves.
How to use Laravel?
And for Laravel to develop this application, it requires custom programming to develop its functionalities . We are going to try to present some examples of possible Laravel applications.
The possible applications are all applications developed in PHP, for example, client areas, intranets, web applications with specific functionalities, APIS, and practically any web functionality that requires custom programming.
Why choose Laravel?
The power of Laravel lies in its integration, scalability and ease of maintenance compared to other developments in 100% native languages and therefore it is one more option to take into account when deciding to use this framework in our developments.
When to use Laravel? (three points to highlight)
As we mentioned before, the key is needs, so we will choose Laravel for custom developments when:
CMSs do not cover our needs as a web application.
We need agile, secure custom software development services with easy scalability and maintenance.
If in addition to needing a web solution, it has to be integrated with other applications (Google, mailing services, ERP's, etc.).
At this point, and after everything mentioned, we can only reaffirm that Laravel and development with Frameworks is gaining more and more strength since they offer affordable solutions for small businesses without the need to embark on large pharaonic projects.
