Laravel has now become the most stared PHP repo on GitHub. This is really a crazy accomplishment if you think just three years ago Laravel didn’t even exist. Not only that but in the first year it went from v1 to v3. If you are interested in the full history check out Eloquence Emerging by Maks Surguy
I feel like Laravel is so popular for several reasons. More than anything I think it’s that the community is awesome and it’s been a focus from the beginning. Everything from IRC, the forums, the conference is welcoming to all people.
Laravel is also very good at pinpointing developer pain points and including nice solutions. A lot of times, this isn’t anything magical either. For example returning an eloquent result from a route gives you JSON. Or the way migrations and seeding is so simple. Or how phpUnit is included and all setup ready to go. I could go on and on but if you’ve used it then you already understand.
These are all simple things, but it shows that you (the developer) have been thought about and making your life easier is an important priority.
Finally, Laravel has found that sweet spot between being so simple you always want more, to full-on enterprise. With a base install, you can quickly and easily create all kinds of very powerful software.
The future is bright and it will be up to the community to keep things pressing forward and pushing the envelope. But that is a task I know we are up for.
