Laravel Nova vs Filament: The Best Admin Panels

What Are Laravel Nova and Filament?

Laravel Nova is the official admin panel developed by the Laravel team. It integrates smoothly with any Laravel application and comes packed with handy features. Nova is known for its sleek, professional interface, ease of use, and straightforward integration.

Filament, on the other hand, is an open-source admin panel focused on simplicity, customization, and flexibility. Filament’s component-based structure gives us lots of freedom to create a unique admin experience.

Ease of Setup and Installation

Laravel Nova: Because Nova is a paid package, you’ll need a license before installing it. Setup is simple: install it via Composer, run a few Artisan commands, and your admin panel is ready to go:

composer require laravel/nova
php artisan nova:install
php artisan migrate

Filament: Filament is free and open-source, so you can add it to your project with a single Composer command. Within a few minutes, you’ll have a functional admin panel.

composer require filament/filament
php artisan migrate

UI and Customization

Laravel Nova: Nova offers a polished, ready-to-go UI that looks professional right out of the box. Customization options are plentiful, and the pre-built components make it a good fit for professional or client-facing dashboards. For example, to add a resource in Nova (like a Product manager), just run:

php artisan nova:resource Product

Filament: Filament’s UI is minimalistic yet highly customizable, with a layout built on Tailwind CSS that you can easily adjust. If you like a hands-on approach to design and want the flexibility of Tailwind, Filament is perfect. To create a similar Product resource in Filament, you can use:

php artisan make:filament-resource Product

Learning Curve

Laravel Nova: Nova is relatively easy to learn, especially if you’re already familiar with Laravel. Its documentation is extensive, and most tasks can be handled with a few Artisan commands. However, more advanced tweaks might require diving into Laravel's internals.

Filament: Filament is equally beginner-friendly, with clear documentation and a strong focus on usability. It’s especially good for you if you want customization without a steep learning curve.

Extensibility and Ecosystem

Laravel Nova: Nova has a solid ecosystem, with plenty of packages that integrate seamlessly with other Laravel features like policies and authorization. It’s built to scale with more complex projects.

Filament: Filament’s open-source nature has sparked a growing ecosystem of plugins and community extensions. We can contribute our own plugins, leading to a rapidly expanding library of add-ons for things like role management and file uploads. For example, you can set up role-based access with Filament using spatie/laravel-permission.

Performance and Scalability

Laravel Nova: Nova is designed to handle large datasets and complex queries, making it a good choice for enterprise-level applications. However, as a commercial product, you’ll need a license per project, which can add up for larger applications.

Filament: Filament’s lightweight structure allows it to perform well, even with extensive data. Its architecture is flexible enough to handle larger datasets efficiently. For instance, Filament supports server-side processing for tables, ensuring faster load times with big data.

Real-Life Examples

1. Customer Management System: For a small business’s customer management system, Filament’s ease of setup and zero cost make it a great fit. You can build custom forms and actions for each business need without much hassle.

2. Enterprise Dashboard: For a professional, enterprise-level dashboard (say, a property management platform for a real estate firm), Nova’s polished UI and native data handling capabilities might be more suitable, providing a premium look and feel.

3. Inventory Tracking System: For a medium-sized business tracking inventory, Filament’s flexibility is ideal. You can build a custom dashboard that displays real-time inventory levels with filters to quickly locate items and manage stock.

Pricing Comparison

Laravel Nova: Nova is a commercial product with a one-time fee of around $99 per project for solo developers. While this is a fair investment for a single project, it can add up if you’re working on multiple applications.

Filament: Filament is completely free, making it an attractive choice if you are on a budget or for projects where paid solutions are out of reach.

Code Snippets: Displaying Resources

Laravel Nova Example: Nova lets you define resources in a straightforward way. For example, here’s a simple User resource setup:

class User extends Resource
{
    public function fields(Request $request)
    {
        return [
            ID::make()->sortable(),
            Text::make('Name')->sortable(),
            Email::make('Email'),
        ];
    }
}

Filament Example: Filament also makes defining resources easy, but with a modern twist using Tailwind and Alpine.js. Here’s how you might set up a User resource:

class UserResource extends Resource
{
    protected static string $model = User::class;

    public static function form(Form $form): Form
    {
        return $form->schema([
            TextInput::make('name')->required(),
            TextInput::make('email')->required(),
        ]);
    }
}

Which Should You Choose?

At the end of the day, both Laravel Nova and Filament are fantastic choices with different strengths. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Choose Laravel Nova if you need a highly polished, ready-made admin interface, solid support, and don’t mind a one-time fee.

• Choose Filament if you prefer a budget-friendly, open-source solution with flexibility and customization options.

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Whether you go with Nova’s premium feel or Filament’s customizable approach, you’re equipped to build a powerful, user-friendly admin panel in Laravel. So go ahead, choose the best fit for you, and get building!