After shipping several projects on both stacks, here is my honest verdict — with the criteria that should decide for each project type.
Laravel and Symfony have dominated PHP for 15 years. In 2026 the choice isn't as obvious.
Productivity first. Eloquent still the most productive ORM anywhere. Herd, Forge, Vapor for zero-ops deploy.
Solidity first. Strict typing, Doctrine, Messenger, reusable components.
Laravel: solo/small team, MVP, zero-ops. Symfony: 5+ devs, complex domain, strict typing, heterogeneous SI.
Property hooks, asymmetric visibility, new() without parentheses — PHP 8.4 brings major syntax changes. A concrete tour with examples.
Checkout, webhooks, customer portal, downgrade handling — the full guide based on a real deployed and billed implementation.
The 2026 PHP testing pyramid: unit with Pest, integration with native PHPUnit, mutation testing with Infection. Pragmatic guide.
I design and ship tailor-made applications. 9 years of experience. Let's talk over a coffee (or a call).
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