In the Laravel world, packages play an important role. How important is this role and what packages are there? To find out, we took data from the Packagist.org API and filtered out Laravel packages.
How did we define Laravel packages? Using a file
composer.json. We treat bag to Laravel ecosystem, if the fields name, description, keywords or type contain a string laravel. Also, a package was defined as a Laravel package if it contained laravel/framework or any subtree component illuminate/*as a dependency. Finally, the key laravelin the field was extra also a pointer to the package's membership in the Laravel framework ecosystem.
While these criteria do not guarantee that the package is exclusively Laravel, it does indicate that the package was built with Laravel in mind.
Most popular packages
If you take a simple look at the list of the most downloaded packages , the results will not please: these are base packages and packages with a large number of uses outside Laravel projects.
| Package | Monthly downloads | |-------------------------|-------------------| | nesbot/carbon | 4084214 | | laravel/framework | 2987907 | | laravel/tinker | 2455355 | | fideloper/proxy | 2376631 | | nunomaduro/collision | 1510258 | | intervention/image | 1099989 | | facade/ignition | 966800 | | facade/flare-client-php | 934651 | | composer/installers | 803222 | | illuminate/support | 756189 |Perhaps a more interesting rating can be obtained by eliminating these “false positive” results. We have manually filtered the 30 most popular packages that were created for Laravel projects and are purposefully installed. We've also outlined the areas of destination for these packages.
| | Package | Monthly | Total | Purpose | |----|------------------------------------|---------|----------|---------| | 1 | maatwebsite/excel | 680466 | 17769696 | port | | 2 | laravelcollective/html | 678048 | 21785383 | helper | | 3 | barryvdh/laravel-ide-helper | 644297 | 18918427 | dev | | 4 | barryvdh/laravel-debugbar | 625080 | 19404288 | dev | | 5 | laravel/passport | 552633 | 10099903 | auth | | 6 | beyondcode/laravel-dump-server | 530901 | 11035024 | dev | | 7 | sentry/sentry-laravel | 455879 | 8440070 | integ | | 8 | laravel/ui | 433850 | 1599042 | auth | | 9 | barryvdh/laravel-cors | 400920 | 10823255 | helper | | 10 | laravel/socialite | 394471 | 10166784 | auth | | 11 | laravel/slack-notification-channel | 385921 | 7172937 | integ | | 12 | tymon/jwt-auth | 359693 | 9107092 | auth | | 13 | barryvdh/laravel-dompdf | 349572 | 8006731 | port | | 14 | laravel/helpers | 337956 | 1692185 | helper | | 15 | spatie/laravel-permission | 308453 | 5224001 | auth | | 16 | laravel/horizon | 304864 | 4599598 | integ | | 17 | laravel/dusk | 256261 | 4542482 | dev | | 18 | laravel/nexmo-notification-channel | 238192 | 6080124 | integ | | 19 | laravel/telescope | 227966 | 2289576 | dev | | 20 | bugsnag/bugsnag-laravel | 223167 | 6544766 | dev | | 21 | yajra/laravel-datatables-oracle | 212985 | 5644721 | integ | | 22 | aws/aws-sdk-php-laravel | 212260 | 7070121 | integ | | 23 | orchestra/testbench-core | 199780 | 1864659 | dev | | 24 | orchestra/testbench | 195269 | 2279889 | dev | | 25 | symplify/package-builder | 193661 | 1484783 | dev | | 26 | laravel/scout | 177270 | 3391042 | integ | | 27 | barryvdh/laravel-snappy | 156741 | 3651684 | port | | 28 | webpatser/laravel-uuid | 153883 | 4774711 | helper | | 29 | spatie/laravel-medialibrary | 149290 | 2293823 | helper | | 30 | spatie/laravel-activitylog | 148932 | 2387978 | dev |Explanation of destination areas:
auth- authentication and authorizationdev- development and debugging toolshelper- support and simplification of workinteg- integration with other servicesport- import and / or export in various formats
Development tools rank first in this list, followed by integration.
We expected to see more Spatie packages at the very top , but it turned out that maatwebsite / excel and tools from Barry vd. Heuvels are used more frequently.
Supplier overview
In total, we identified 47,337 Laravel packages from 23,167 different developers. The result is a fairly even distribution with many small participants.
Half of the packages (23,668) were created by 3927 core developers. This is significantly more than if Price's law had been in effect here . 15,042 developers have published just one package each.
If you sort the developers by the number of packages, you can see almost unknown names. Here are the top performing package builders with the cumulative downloads of their respective packages.
| | Developer | Count | Daily | Monthly | Total | |----|-------------------------------|-------|-------|---------|----------| | 1 | socialiteproviders | 159 | 10645 | 256409 | 5826725 | | 2 | bantenprov | 132 | 0 | 5 | 3160 | | 3 | spatie | 124 | 89124 | 2746665 | 43095685 | | 4 | railken | 119 | 0 | 11082 | 313129 | | 5 | laravel-enso | 95 | 1519 | 29456 | 879635 | | 6 | amethyst | 92 | 1232 | 8118 | 100819 | | 7 | faustbrian | 85 | 152 | 2639 | 52698 | | 8 | artisanry | 78 | 129 | 1190 | 11938 | | 9 | sukohi | 75 | 58 | 1773 | 53805 | | 10 | anomaly | 59 | 198 | 6095 | 974489 | | 11 | sanatorium | 59 | 0 | 0 | 20 | | 12 | laravel-notification-channels | 54 | 3107 | 99536 | 1621420 | | 13 | hnhdigital-os | 54 | 38 | 1571 | 20304 | | 14 | arcanedev | 53 | 3875 | 127702 | 3293360 | | 15 | inetstudio | 53 | 241 | 3870 | 77009 | | 16 | larakit | 49 | 1 | 410 | 18540 | | 17 | orchestra | 48 | 21569 | 544696 | 7606461 | | 18 | abuseio | 45 | 1 | 951 | 78289 | | 19 | genealabs | 43 | 3219 | 87234 | 1215349 | | 20 | smorken | 41 | 36 | 985 | 14277 |It turns out that there are quite a few developers who create a large number of components and deploy them without much advertising. To see more famous names and compare the numbers for them, let's sort the list by the total number of downloads.
| | Developer | Count | Daily | Monthly | Total | |----|-------------------|-------|--------|---------|-----------| | 1 | laravel | 39 | 364375 | 9832728 | 225867755 | | 2 | illuminate | 33 | 244509 | 7210832 | 197044965 | | 3 | nesbot | 1 | 179106 | 4084214 | 112631927 | | 4 | barryvdh | 19 | 82289 | 2246578 | 63115434 | | 5 | spatie | 124 | 89124 | 2746665 | 43095685 | | 6 | fideloper | 3 | 100748 | 2376631 | 41313378 | | 7 | intervention | 7 | 46259 | 1260102 | 33891504 | | 8 | composer | 1 | 10603 | 803222 | 26065561 | | 9 | league | 7 | 18996 | 731742 | 24433630 | | 10 | nunomaduro | 19 | 68333 | 1734552 | 23394056 | | 11 | laravelcollective | 6 | 32460 | 710099 | 23285426 | | 12 | maatwebsite | 6 | 27955 | 717140 | 18258360 | | 13 | cocur | 1 | 19246 | 491761 | 16609476 | | 14 | jenssegers | 15 | 24263 | 544700 | 16468485 | | 15 | beyondcode | 29 | 14221 | 677724 | 12648233 | | 16 | laracasts | 11 | 10352 | 317232 | 12119703 | | 17 | graham-campbell | 36 | 11092 | 291114 | 10184667 | | 18 | facade | 5 | 67794 | 1915933 | 9860242 | | 19 | yajra | 19 | 17794 | 446360 | 9792222 | | 20 | tymon | 2 | 11437 | 359693 | 9107116 |If you instead sort the list by monthly downloads, the result will be slightly different.
| | Developer | Count | Daily | Monthly | Total | |----|-------------------|-------|--------|---------|-----------| | 1 | laravel | 39 | 364375 | 9832728 | 225867755 | | 2 | illuminate | 33 | 244509 | 7210832 | 197044965 | | 3 | nesbot | 1 | 179106 | 4084214 | 112631927 | | 4 | spatie | 124 | 89124 | 2746665 | 43095685 | | 5 | fideloper | 3 | 100748 | 2376631 | 41313378 | | 6 | barryvdh | 19 | 82289 | 2246578 | 63115434 | | 7 | facade | 5 | 67794 | 1915933 | 9860242 | | 8 | nunomaduro | 19 | 68333 | 1734552 | 23394056 | | 9 | intervention | 7 | 46259 | 1260102 | 33891504 | | 10 | composer | 1 | 10603 | 803222 | 26065561 |These distributions clearly outweigh the top. Whether we're looking at daily, monthly, or total downloads, over half of all downloads come from the top 6 package developers. For example, 2.85 million out of 5.65 million daily downloads are shared by laravel , illuminate , nesbot , spatie , fideloper and barryvdh .
You can use something like the Hirsch Index to measure developer popularity. There are only 317 developers, each with at least 317 downloads per day. 1,118 vendors have 1,118 or more downloads per month, or 3003 for total downloads.
Licensing options
Our licensing overview is not particularly accurate as different strings are used to denote the same license. For example,
gpl-3.0, gpl 3.0, gpl3, gplv3, even gnu general public license version 3, and many other options point to the same license.
Fortunately, the main conclusions are clear, as the line
mitdenotes the corresponding license for 37,502 Laravel packages. 6304 packages are not licensed, more than 500 packages are distributed under Apache 2.0 and GPL 3.0 licenses. There are also several hundred packages with BSD 2, BSD 3 and GPL 2.0 licenses.
79% of Laravel packages are MIT licensed, 14% are unlicensed, and each of the other licenses is used in 2% or fewer packages. Perhaps this is partly the influence of the Laravel framework itself, which is distributed under the MIT license. If you look at all the packages, the popularity of the MIT license is significantly lower - 60%.
Beyond Laravel
The number of packages for different frameworks demonstrates the community's involvement in the development of the framework's tools and the degree to which it is willing to share its code with other contributors. We also counted the number of dropped packages and their percentage to see which communities are thriving and which are lagging behind.
| | Framework | Packages | Abandoned | Aband. % | |----|---------------|----------|-----------|----------| | 1 | Laravel | 47337 | 2618 | 5,5% | | 2 | Symfony | 39428 | 3362 | 8,5% | | 3 | Yii | 15354 | 552 | 3,6% | | 4 | ZendFramework | 7459 | 790 | 10,6% | | 5 | WordPress | 6446 | 480 | 7,4% | | 6 | Nette | 3460 | 342 | 9,9% | | 7 | CakePHP | 2607 | 173 | 6,6% | | 8 | Slim | 1411 | 64 | 4,5% | | 9 | Laminas | 811 | 17 | 2,0% | | 10 | Phalcon | 726 | 40 | 5,5% | | 11 | Codeigniter | 663 | 91 | 13,7% | | 12 | Aura | 450 | 32 | 7,1% | | 13 | Kohana | 341 | 43 | 12,6% | | 14 | FuelPHP | 148 | 12 | 8,1% | | 15 | PHPixie | 73 | 1 | 1,4% |
On the other hand, the total number of downloads reflects the importance of packages for developing standard projects.
Please note that when calculating this number of downloads, all packages associated with the framework are taken into account, not just the base ones (as with the calculation of the number of packages above). For criteria for classifying a package as belonging to a specific framework, see here . One package can belong to ecosystems of several frameworks.
| | Framework | Monthly | Total | |----|---------------|-----------|------------| | 1 | Symfony | 366029776 | 8945189030 | | 2 | Laravel | 56523199 | 1315681505 | | 3 | ZendFramework | 50789083 | 1460984224 | | 4 | Nette | 14137793 | 295710951 | | 5 | Laminas | 9540512 | 134960483 | | 6 | Yii | 5662063 | 200378585 | | 7 | CakePHP | 4067892 | 112091915 | | 8 | WordPress | 3871828 | 96962490 | | 9 | Slim | 2123558 | 46196613 | | 10 | FuelPHP | 930846 | 32043126 | | 11 | Codeigniter | 919926 | 30474042 | | 12 | Kohana | 912106 | 31918403 | | 13 | Aura | 467771 | 18063339 | | 14 | Phalcon | 137762 | 4322810 | | 15 | PHPixie | 5353 | 572100 |
It should be noted that Symfony's leading position does not mean that most packages are downloaded for use in projects based on this framework. Some of the core Symfony packages are used by Laravel, and many other Symfony packages can also be used in Laravel projects.
Also, notably, Zend packages have almost as many downloads per month as Laravel, although this project is no longer supported.
Finally, take a look at the general list of the most downloaded PHP packages.
| | Package | Monthly | Total | |----|-----------------------------------|---------|-----------| | 1 | symfony/polyfill-mbstring | 7943600 | 210645235 | | 2 | psr/log | 7768451 | 238663129 | | 3 | symfony/polyfill-ctype | 7284741 | 110601284 | | 4 | psr/container | 6847606 | 119345271 | | 5 | symfony/console | 6713344 | 199367074 | | 6 | guzzlehttp/guzzle | 6607580 | 168514253 | | 7 | symfony/finder | 6486878 | 176261290 | | 8 | psr/http-message | 6384401 | 164860087 | | 9 | guzzlehttp/promises | 6372505 | 149984782 | | 10 | guzzlehttp/psr7 | 6350221 | 161806561 | | 11 | doctrine/instantiator | 6199120 | 180684872 | | 12 | symfony/process | 6167368 | 169254030 | | 13 | phpdocumentor/reflection-docblock | 6140913 | 165150240 | | 14 | monolog/monolog | 6109702 | 196673732 | | 15 | symfony/event-dispatcher | 6098870 | 190433052 | | 16 | webmozart/assert | 5905460 | 144395517 | | 17 | doctrine/lexer | 5895066 | 157678399 | | 18 | ralouphie/getallheaders | 5861396 | 66293788 | | 19 | doctrine/inflector | 5743593 | 171588858 | | 20 | phpdocumentor/type-resolver | 5706391 | 136101740 |The data presented in this article was mainly collected by Gatis Šūpulnieks in April and May 2020 as part of the research "Developing and using Laravel packages".
Relevant sources:
- Initial data
- Related article by Jason McCreary
- The author of this article: Juris Evertovskis
- : Gatis Šūpulnieks
- ,