Laravel 11: An In-Depth Review of The Leading PHP Framework

Laravel 11 introduces several enhancements to streamline development and enhance the health and performance of your application. Three key additions include new ‘make’ commands, ‘dumpable’ trait, a method-based approach to attribute casting, and the ‘once’ memoization function. The 'make' commands simplifies code creation, while the default health check endpoint provides a straightforward method for monitoring application health.

The 'Dumpable' trait facilitates debugging and eager loading with limits to improve efficiency. The adoption of a method-based approach for attribute casting offers greater flexibility in model management, and the inclusion of the 'Once()' memoization function optimizes performance by ensuring callable execution only once. Together, these features reinforce Laravel's commitment to providing a robust and developer-friendly framework for building modern web applications.

Laravel adopted the [Semantic Versioning standard](https://semver.org/) in version 6. This means that whenever Laravel adds something that is compatible with older versions of the framework, it increments the second number of the version. So, to make it clearer, when an update occurs from Laravel 11.1 to 11.2, it is basically the same as what happened in Laravel 5 (before semver) from 5.5.1 to 5.5.2.

Now, Laravel releases a new major version every 12 months. This cycle is well-established and reliable, with new versions released every year since Laravel 6 (which was released on September 3, 2019).

The latest version of Laravel is 11, which was released in March 2024. Laravel 11 offers an attractive range of features that not only perform well, but also greatly enhance the developer experience, boosting productivity.