Laravel prioritizes developer speed and simplicity with an elegant syntax and rapid scaffolding, while Symfony offers enterprise-grade flexibility and modularity with more configuration control. Laravel dominates for startups and MVPs; Symfony excels in large-scale, complex applications requiring fine-grained customization.
Laravel vs Symfony — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Modern PHP framework emphasizing expressive syntax and developer productivity for web applications.
Enterprise PHP framework built on reusable, decoupled components designed for complex, large-scale applications.
Learning Curve. Development Speed. Enterprise Scalability. Community Size. Built-in ORM. Modularity & Reusability. Job Market Demand (2024)
Choose Laravel if you're building a startup MVP, SaaS product, or CRUD-heavy application where rapid prototyping and developer happiness matter most. Choose Symfony if you're architecting a large enterprise system, require strict architectural control, need maximum flexibility with distributed microservices, or are building reusable packages for the PHP ecosystem.
Laravel: No, third-party required | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Full native (built-in queues) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Limited (minimal options) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: ~50MB with dependencies | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 2,500+ verified packages | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Yes (with 2FA, API tokens) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Yes (built-in with Artisan) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: ~86,000 (Packagist) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 64% of PHP frameworks | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 45-60 ms per request | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Yes, built-in (Laravel Auth) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Native (Redis, database, sync) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Senior/Intermediate (5+ years PHP/OOP) | Symfony: N/A
Reported Security Vulnerabilities (2024)
Laravel: Composer packages (1M+) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Limited—requires PHP expertise | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 8 minutes | Symfony: 22 minutes
Laravel: 800-1200ms (PHP cold starts) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 0.8-1.5s per page (Blade templating) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 2.5M (Packagist) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: PHPStan/Psalm (third-party tools) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: $24-60/year (shared PHP hosting) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 280K (Packagist registry) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 6.2 million | Symfony: 2.1 million
Laravel: 1 day (php artisan new) | Symfony: 3-4 days
Laravel: 3 years (standard support) | Symfony: 5 years (LTS versions)
Laravel: 45,000+ packages | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: ~800,000 packages | Symfony: N/A
Learning Curve (Time to Basic Proficiency)
Laravel: 20-30% slower under load | Symfony: Baseline (faster)
Laravel: Emerging in enterprise | Symfony: 1,300+ companies
Laravel: ORM, Auth, Caching, Queue, Mail, Broadcasting | Symfony: Routing, DI Container (minimal by default)
Laravel: 2,800+ pages | Symfony: 1,900+ pages
Average Page Load Time (no optimization)
Laravel: Basic (no SSG/SSR built-in) | Symfony: N/A
Learning Curve (for beginner developers)
Laravel: Manual (Blade templating) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 8/10 (Advanced PHP) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Very Complex (SaaS, APIs, Enterprise) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 380,000+ packages | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 67% of new projects | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: 18% of legacy systems | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Reverb WebSockets (built-in) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: ~1,200 contributors | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: ~2.5M (Composer) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Eloquent ORM (native) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Laravel Breeze included | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Limited (Vapor, custom solutions) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: ~35 MB (with dependencies) | Symfony: N/A
Laravel: Yes (Eloquent) | Symfony: Doctrine (flexible, enterprise-grade)
Learning Curve (estimated hours to productivity)
Laravel: ~150 lines | Symfony: ~380 lines
Laravel: 250,000+ active users | Symfony: 95,000+ active users
Laravel: ~8 core packages | Symfony: 30+ independent components
Laravel: 13,400 roles | Symfony: 4,200 roles
Laravel: 31,000+ stars | Symfony: 29,000+ stars
How to choose between Laravel and Symfony
Laravel vs Symfony — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for Laravel vs Symfony. Contains 107 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
Laravel vs Symfony — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Laravel vs Symfony.
Which framework is better for beginners?
Laravel is significantly better for beginners. It has a gentler learning curve, more intuitive syntax, and better documentation. A developer can become productive in 2-3 weeks with Laravel vs 6-8 weeks with Symfony. Laravel's Artisan CLI also scaffolds code automatically, reducing manual configuration.
Can I use Symfony components in Laravel?
Yes. Laravel already uses several Symfony components internally (Console, Routing, Validator, VarDumper). However, Laravel's architecture doesn't naturally integrate full Symfony components like DependencyInjection or Form components—you'd need significant customization.
Which is better for enterprise applications?
Symfony is designed for enterprise applications. It has stricter architectural patterns, built-in support for microservices, superior form handling, and better component reusability. Major enterprises (Spotify, Xing, BlaBlaCar) use Symfony. Laravel can scale but requires architectural discipline and custom patterns.
What's the hiring landscape for each framework?
Laravel has 13,400+ job postings globally vs Symfony's 4,200+ (2024 data). Laravel dominates in startup/SaaS hiring, while Symfony sees more demand in enterprise/financial sectors. Laravel developers earn 5-8% less on average ($65-75K) compared to Symfony specialists ($70-82K).
Performance is similar—both achieve ~200-300 requests/second on identical hardware with caching. Symfony's strict architecture may offer slight advantages (3-5%) in optimized microservice deployments, while Laravel's simpler routing adds negligible overhead. Database queries and caching strategies matter far more than framework choice.
How to Choose Between Laravel and Symfony
Learning Curve: Laravel has Shallow - intuitive syntax, extensive documentation, while Symfony has Steep - complex architecture, requires deeper PHP knowledge.
Development Speed: Laravel has ~40% faster MVP delivery via Artisan scaffolding, while Symfony has 25-30% slower due to required configuration.
Enterprise Scalability: Laravel has Good for mid-scale; requires architectural patterns at scale, while Symfony has Built-in support for large distributed systems.
Community Size: Laravel has ~52% of PHP developers use Laravel, while Symfony has ~28% of PHP developers use Symfony.
Built-in ORM: Laravel has Eloquent - expressive, fluent syntax, while Symfony has Doctrine - verbose but more control.
Modularity & Reusability: Laravel has Monolithic by default; packages are reusable, while Symfony has Component-based; 30+ independent Symfony Components.
Job Market Demand (2024): Laravel has 13,400+ job postings globally, while Symfony has 4,200+ job postings globally.