How to Use Laravel With React.js? Complete Guide

Want to engage users with dynamic and responsive interfaces? Then, combining Laravel’s powerful backend with React’s quick frontend would be the way to go.

For the best of both worlds, professional developers choose this strong combination. Here, Laravel handles complex data logic and authentication, while React.js creates smooth, interactive UIs that engage users. This article shows you how to use Laravel with React.js to build dynamic, production-ready applications from scratch.

What is Laravel?

Laravel, an MVC-based PHP framework, is powerful. Expressive, elegant syntax and all-inclusive authentication are what make it the best. Apart from that, there are routing, caching, and database management utilities exclusively for developers. The right foundation for studying Laravel with React.js, Laravel simplifies backend development.

Core Features of Laravel

• MVC Architecture: Clean separation of logic, presentation, and data for maintainable code.
• Eloquent ORM: Simplified database queries using an intuitive, object-oriented approach.
• Routing and Middleware: Flexible routing with powerful middleware for authentication and security.
• Artisan CLI: Command-line tool for migrations, seeders, and task automation.
• Authentication and Security: Built-in user authentication, hashing, and CSRF protection.
• Blade Templating: Lightweight templating engine for dynamic views.

These features make Laravel the go-to framework for handling the backend when you use React with Laravel for frontend rendering.

What is React.js?

React.js is a free and open-source JavaScript library created by Facebook for building user interfaces (UIs). It is particularly useful for single-page applications that require a fast, interactive, and dynamic experience.

It breaks down complex UIs into reusable components, each with its own logic and appearance. These components can receive data from parent components, making them flexible and adaptable. Additionally, the virtual DOM provides a lightweight copy of the real DOM that calculates the minimal updates needed, ensuring optimal performance.

Core Features of React.js

• Component-Based Architecture: Effective for creating reusable UI components. These components can be nested, maintained, and handled separately, improving code reuse and structure.
• Virtual DOM: React uses a virtual DOM to optimize updates. It updates the virtual DOM efficiently and syncs changes with the real DOM, boosting performance.
• JavaScript XML(JSX): JSX is a syntactic extension for JavaScript that allows HTML-like syntax. Because it resembles the UI, it makes the code easier to read and write.
• Unidirectional Data Flow: React enforces one-way data flow. With data changes following a single path, applications are easier to understand and debug.
• State Management: React components can manage and respond to changes with built-in state. Redux, the Context API, and other libraries can manage more complex state needs.

These essential features make React.js a strong and adaptable toolkit for modern web apps. User interfaces built with ReactJS are efficient, scalable, and maintainable. Similarly, understanding how to use Laravel with Vue.JS helps in creating dynamic, interactive, and high-performing full-stack applications.

Why use Laravel with React.js?

When you use Laravel with React.js, Laravel handles backend operations while React manages the user-facing interface. But there are a few differences between them as well. Let’s see what those are:

Difference Between Laravel and React (Backend vs Frontend)

Benefits of Using Laravel With React.js

Laravel and React.js combine the capabilities of the former’s backend framework and the latter’s fast front-end library. Here are some key reasons to use Laravel with React.js:

Separation of Concerns: Laravel manages backend logic, database transactions, and security, while React.js builds dynamic and interactive user interfaces. This separation organizes code and simplifies code maintenance.

Improved Performance: React’s virtual DOM reduces unnecessary re-renders, enhancing user experience. Laravel’s built-in caching and routing further improve application performance.

Rich Developer Experience: Both Laravel and React.js have big, active communities. Third-party libraries make development faster and more efficient.

Scalability: Applications can scale using Laravel’s modular design and React’s component-based architecture. You can add features without changing most of the codebase.

Modern Web Development: Two common technologies are ideal for online applications. Laravel provides a solid foundation, while React.js creates compelling and user-friendly interfaces.

So, Laravel and React.js create a secure, scalable backend and dynamic, interactive frontend. This integration enables developers to build modern, responsive, high-performance web apps with clean, maintainable code. Many developers use Laravel and React to create projects ranging from small sites to large-scale marketplaces with excellent user experiences.

Real Life Use Cases of Laravel with React.js

Laravel with React powers:

Single Page Applications (SPAs): React creates fluid, app-like SPAs. You can build sophisticated apps like Gmail or Trello that load once and update dynamically with Laravel serving as the API backend.

E-Commerce Websites: Laravel handles backend processing for payments, inventory, and orders, while React delivers smooth, interactive product browsing and checkout experiences.

SaaS Platforms: Laravel’s multi-tenancy support and authentication, combined with React’s complex dashboards and data visualizations, benefit SaaS products.

Social Media Platforms: require real-time updates, complex data links, and highly dynamic interfaces, perfect use cases for this technology.

CMS and Admin Panels: These tools need powerful backend data management (Laravel) and intuitive, responsive content-editing interfaces (React).

These use cases demonstrate why Laravel React projects dominate modern web development.

How to Use Laravel with React.js?

Using Laravel with React.js involves setting up a Laravel backend to handle server-side logic and a React frontend for building dynamic user interfaces. Here’s a step-by-step guide to integrating Laravel with React.js:

Prerequisites

Before you start using Laravel with Reactjs, make sure you are up to speed with a few prerequisites.

• Basic understanding of Laravel and React.js concepts.
• Node.js and npm (or yarn) installed on your system.

Step 1: Create a Laravel Project

Use Laravel installer or Composer to create a new project. This establishes the basic structure for your Laravel application, including Laravel routing and resource controllers.

laravel new your-project-name

This command uses the Laravel installer to create a fresh Laravel project named “your-app-name”.

Using the cd command, navigate to your newly created project directory:

cd your-app-name

It will change your directory to the newly created project. Then, install dependencies by using:

npm install laravel-mix react

This command installs the Laravel Mix package. It helps compile React code and the React package itself for building React components.

Step 2: Creating React Components

Create a dedicated directory to organize your React components for better separation of concerns.

mkdir resources/react

It creates a directory named resources/react within your Laravel project’s resources directory to keep your React components.

Then, create a React Component. For example, Welcome.jsx

// resources/react/Welcome.jsx
import React from 'react';
function Welcome() {
return (
<div className="welcome">
<h1>Welcome to Your Laravel and React.js App!</h1>
</div>
);
}
export default Welcome;

This above code creates a simple React component named Welcome.jsx that displays a heading. We import React from the react package and define a functional component named Welcome. Then, return the JSX code to render the heading element.

Step 3: Configuring Laravel Mix

Open the webpack.mix.js file located in your project’s root directory using a text editor.

nano webpack.mix.js  // Or your preferred text editor

To update the configuration, locate the existing code in webpack.mix.js and replace it with the following:

const mix = require('laravel-mix');
mix.react('resources/react/app.js', 'public/js')
.sass('resources/sass/app.scss', 'public/css');

This code configures Laravel Mix to process react code. We use mix.react to specify that we’re working with React. The first argument, ‘resources/react/app.js’, indicates the entry point for your application. The second argument, ‘public/js’, defines the output directory for React JavaScript files. Then, save changes to webpack.mix.js.

Step 4: Building the React Application Entry Point

Here, we create the react application entry point. You can use the below command to create:

touch resources/react/app.js

This command creates a file named app.js within the resources/react directory. Then, import and render the component of the app.js

// resources/react/app.js
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import Welcome from './Welcome';
const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('root'));
root.render(<Welcome />);

It will import React and ReactDOM from the react package and then import the Welcome component we created earlier. We use ReactDOM.createRoot to create a root element in the DOM and render the Welcome component within it.

Step 5: Integrating React with Laravel

Create a Blade template that includes the necessary elements to integrate your React application.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Laravel and React.js App</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ mix('css/app.css') }}">  </head>
<body>
<div id="root"></div>
<script src="{{ mix('js/app.js') }}"></script>
</body>
</html>

This code creates a basic Blade template named welcome.blade.php.

Step 6: Running the Application

To run the application, start the laravel development server. To run the application, use the command:

php artisan serve

This command starts the Laravel development server. Then, you can access your application in the browser, usually at http://localhost:8000.

Open http://localhost:8000/welcome in your browser. You should see the heading “Welcome to Your Laravel and React.js App!” displayed on the page.

Step 7: Deployment Tips

• Optimize Vite/Mix: Run npm run build for production assets.
• Hosting Options: Deploy on Cloudways, Laravel Forge, AWS, or DigitalOcean.
• Environment Variables: Set APP_ENV=production and configure .env.
• Database Migrations: Run php artisan migrate –force on production.

These tips ensure the smooth deployment of Laravel with React applications.

By following these steps and understanding the concepts involved, you can effectively integrate Laravel with React.js. If you want to build functional and user-friendly sites by integrating ReactJS, get help from our professional Laravel development company.

Let’s Conclude

By integrating Laravel’s robust backend capabilities with React’s lightning-fast frontend library, you can build powerful web applications. You can handle complex data logic and user authentication on the server-side with Laravel, while crafting smooth and interactive user interfaces with React.

By setting up a dedicated directory for React components and configuring Laravel Mix for compilation, you can seamlessly integrate these two forces. That lets you fetch data from your Laravel backend using APIs and populate your React components efficiently.

If you find the process challenging or need further assistance, hire dedicated Laravel developers to streamline the integration today!

FAQs About Using Laravel With React

Mayur Upadhyay

Leading digital transformation projects with precision and creativity, Mayur turns complex ideas into results-driven web solutions. As Project Leader at WPWeb Infotech, he leverages his expertise in Laravel, PHP, Shopify, and Drupal to deliver innovation, scalability, and long-term success.