Laravel vs Django: PHP vs Python Frameworks Compared in 2026

Two frameworks dominate full-stack web development: Laravel for PHP and Django for Python. Both are batteries-included. Both have mature ecosystems, active communities, and long production track records. Both ship with an ORM, authentication, templating, and testing tools out of the box.

The decision between them is not about which framework is better. It is about which language ecosystem, developer experience, and architectural style fits your team and project. This guide breaks down every meaningful dimension so you can make an informed choice in 2026.

Laravel vs Django at a Glance

Neither framework has a universal advantage. The right choice follows from the language and ecosystem your team already works in.

ORM: Eloquent vs Django ORM

Both frameworks use an ActiveRecord-like ORM pattern. Your model class represents a database table, instances represent rows, and queries are expressed through chainable methods on the model.

Laravel: Eloquent

Eloquent is expressive and tightly integrated with the rest of the Laravel stack. Relationships, scopes, accessors, and mutators are defined directly on the model class.

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsTo;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\HasMany;

class Post extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['title', 'body', 'published_at', 'author_id'];

    protected $casts = [
        'published_at' => 'datetime',
    ];

    public function author(): BelongsTo
    {
        return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'author_id');
    }

    public function comments(): HasMany
    {
        return $this->hasMany(Comment::class);
    }

    public function scopePublished($query)
    {
        return $query->whereNotNull('published_at');
    }
}

// Query
$posts = Post::published()
    ->with(['author', 'comments'])
    ->latest('published_at')
    ->paginate(20);

Migrations are written as PHP classes and tracked in the database/migrations directory. Running php artisan migrate applies pending migrations in order.

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration {
    public function up(): void
    {
        Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string('title');
            $table->longText('body');
            $table->timestamp('published_at')->nullable();
            $table->foreignId('author_id')->constrained('users');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }
};

Django ORM

Django's ORM follows the same pattern. Models are Python classes, fields are class attributes, and the ORM generates SQL automatically. The key difference is that Django generates migrations automatically with python manage.py makemigrations — you do not write migration files by hand.

from django.db import models

class Post(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=300)
    body = models.TextField()
    published_at = models.DateTimeField(null=True, blank=True)
    author = models.ForeignKey(
        'auth.User',
        on_delete=models.CASCADE,
        related_name='posts'
    )
    created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    updated_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)

    class Meta:
        ordering = ['-published_at']

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title

# Query
posts = (
    Post.objects
    .filter(published_at__isnull=False)
    .select_related('author')
    .prefetch_related('comments')
    .order_by('-published_at')
)

Auto-generated migrations are one of Django's most productive features. The framework inspects your model definitions, diffs them against the last migration state, and generates the migration file. You review and commit it — no manual SQL, no schema drift.

Both ORMs are excellent. Eloquent's syntax tends to read more fluently for developers coming from SQL. Django's auto-migrations reduce the friction of schema changes significantly.

Authentication

Laravel: Starter Kits and API Auth Packages

Laravel does not ship a single monolithic auth system. Instead, it provides composable packages for different use cases.

Breeze is the minimal starter kit for session-based auth. It scaffolds login, registration, password reset, and email verification views using Blade. It is the right starting point for traditional web applications.

Jetstream adds two-factor authentication, team management, and profile photo support. It supports either Livewire or Inertia.js as the frontend stack.

Sanctum handles API token authentication and SPA authentication. It is the standard choice for single-page applications consuming a Laravel backend.

Passport implements the full OAuth2 server specification. Use it when you need to issue access tokens to third-party clients.

// Sanctum — protecting an API route
Route::middleware('auth:sanctum')->group(function () {
    Route::get('/user', function (Request $request) {
        return $request->user();
    });

    Route::apiResource('posts', PostController::class);
});

// Issuing a token
$token = $user->createToken('mobile-app')->plainTextToken;

The flexibility is valuable. The tradeoff is that you need to decide which package fits your use case before you start, and combining them for complex apps (web auth + API auth + OAuth) requires reading the documentation carefully.

Django: Built-In Auth System

Django ships with a complete authentication framework. User model, password hashing (using PBKDF2 by default), login and logout views, session management, and a permissions system are all included and integrated with the admin panel.

from django.contrib.auth.decorators import login_required
from django.contrib.auth.mixins import LoginRequiredMixin
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

# Function-based view
@login_required
def dashboard(request):
    return render(request, 'dashboard.html', {'user': request.user})

# Class-based view
class DashboardView(LoginRequiredMixin, View):
    def get(self, request):
        return render(request, 'dashboard.html')

# Checking permissions
if request.user.has_perm('blog.change_post'):
    post.save()

For token-based and JWT authentication in APIs, the djangorestframework-simplejwt and dj-rest-auth packages extend the built-in system without replacing it. For OAuth, django-allauth adds social login with minimal configuration.

Django's auth system wins on zero-setup simplicity for standard applications. Laravel's modular approach wins when you need fine-grained control over auth flows from day one.

Templating

Laravel: Blade

Blade is Laravel's compiled templating engine. It extends plain PHP with a clean directive syntax for conditionals, loops, components, and layout inheritance. Templates compile to optimized PHP and are cached until the file changes.

{{-- layouts/app.blade.php --}}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>@yield('title', 'My App')</title>
</head>
<body>
    @include('partials.nav')

    <main>
        @yield('content')
    </main>
</body>
</html>

{{-- posts/show.blade.php --}}
@extends('layouts.app')

@section('title', $post->title)

@section('content')
    <article>
        <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
        <p>By {{ $post->author->name }} on {{ $post->published_at->format('M j, Y') }}</p>

        <div class="body">
            {!! $post->rendered_body !!}
        </div>

        @foreach ($post->comments as $comment)
            <x-comment :comment="$comment" />
        @endforeach
    </article>
@endsection

Blade components are first-class: create a resources/views/components/comment.blade.php file and reference it as <x-comment>. Props, slots, and anonymous components give Blade most of the ergonomics of a component-based frontend without JavaScript.

Django: Templates and Jinja2

Django ships its own template language that follows a deliberate philosophy: templates should not contain business logic. It lacks arbitrary expression evaluation by design, which enforces separation between presentation and application code.

<!-- base.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>{% block title %}My App{% endblock %}</title>
</head>
<body>
    {% include "partials/nav.html" %}

    <main>
        {% block content %}{% endblock %}
    </main>
</body>
</html>

<!-- posts/detail.html -->
{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block title %}{{ post.title }}{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
<article>
    <h1>{{ post.title }}</h1>
    <p>By {{ post.author.get_full_name }} on {{ post.published_at|date:"N j, Y" }}</p>

    <div class="body">{{ post.body|linebreaks }}</div>

    {% for comment in post.comments.all %}
        {% include "comments/card.html" with comment=comment %}
    {% endfor %}
</article>
{% endblock %}

If you need more power, Django supports Jinja2 as a drop-in replacement backend. Jinja2 allows full Python expressions in templates and is faster than the Django template engine. Most projects stick with the default — the built-in template language covers the majority of use cases without the added complexity.

Background Jobs

Laravel: Built-In Queue System

Laravel ships with a complete queue system. Jobs are PHP classes that implement ShouldQueue. You dispatch them anywhere in your application and the queue worker processes them asynchronously.

<?php

namespace App\Jobs;

use App\Models\Order;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\Dispatchable;

class ProcessOrder implements ShouldQueue
{
    use Dispatchable, Queueable;

    public int $tries = 3;
    public int $timeout = 120;

    public function __construct(public Order $order) {}

    public function handle(): void
    {
        // Process payment, send confirmation email, update inventory
        $this->order->processPayment();
        $this->order->sendConfirmationEmail();
    }

    public function failed(\Throwable $exception): void
    {
        // Handle failure — notify team, refund payment
    }
}

// Dispatch the job
ProcessOrder::dispatch($order);

// Dispatch with delay
ProcessOrder::dispatch($order)->delay(now()->addMinutes(5));

The queue system supports multiple backends — database, Redis, Amazon SQS, and others — switchable via a single environment variable. php artisan queue:work starts the worker. Laravel Horizon provides a Redis-backed dashboard for monitoring queue throughput, failure rates, and worker status.

This tight integration is a significant Laravel advantage. Job classes, retries, delays, batching, and chaining are all first-party features with consistent APIs.

Django: Celery

Django has no built-in queue system. The standard solution is Celery, a separate Python library that provides distributed task execution. Celery is powerful and widely used, but it requires an additional broker service (typically Redis or RabbitMQ) and separate worker processes managed outside of Django.

# tasks.py
from celery import shared_task
from .models import Order

@shared_task(bind=True, max_retries=3)
def process_order(self, order_id: int):
    try:
        order = Order.objects.get(pk=order_id)
        order.process_payment()
        order.send_confirmation_email()
    except Exception as exc:
        raise self.retry(exc=exc, countdown=60)

# Dispatch the task
process_order.delay(order.id)

# Dispatch with countdown
process_order.apply_async(args=[order.id], countdown=300)

# celery.py (project setup)
import os
from celery import Celery

os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'myproject.settings')

app = Celery('myproject')
app.config_from_object('django.conf:settings', namespace='CELERY')
app.autodiscover_tasks()

Celery requires configuring the broker URL, starting worker processes separately, and managing them in production alongside your Django application. On Out Plane, this means deploying a second worker service from the same repository with a different start command.

Laravel wins this category by a wide margin. The built-in queue system requires no external libraries, no broker configuration decisions, and no separate process management infrastructure.

Deploying on Out Plane

Both frameworks deploy via Docker on Out Plane. The platform handles containerization, routing, TLS, and environment variable injection — you provide a Dockerfile and the platform runs it.

Laravel on Out Plane

FROM php:8.3-cli

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    git unzip libpq-dev libzip-dev \
    && docker-php-ext-install pdo pdo_pgsql zip bcmath \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

COPY --from=composer:latest /usr/bin/composer /usr/bin/composer

WORKDIR /app

COPY composer.json composer.lock ./
RUN composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader --no-scripts

COPY . .

RUN composer dump-autoload --optimize \
    && php artisan config:cache \
    && php artisan route:cache \
    && php artisan view:cache \
    && chmod -R 775 storage bootstrap/cache

EXPOSE 8080

CMD ["php", "artisan", "serve", "--host=0.0.0.0", "--port=8080"]

Set APP_KEY, APP_ENV=production, APP_DEBUG=false, and your database credentials as environment variables in the Out Plane console. For queue workers, deploy a second service using the same repository with php artisan queue:work as the start command.

For the full walkthrough, see the Laravel deployment guide.

Django on Out Plane

FROM python:3.12-slim

WORKDIR /app

COPY requirements.txt .
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

COPY . .

RUN python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

EXPOSE 8080

CMD ["gunicorn", "myproject.wsgi", "--bind", "0.0.0.0:8080", "--workers", "4"]

Set SECRET_KEY, DEBUG=0, ALLOWED_HOSTS, and DATABASE_URL in the Out Plane console. Run python manage.py migrate as a release command or through a one-off task after the first deployment.

For the full walkthrough, see the Django deployment guide.

Both frameworks pick up DATABASE_URL from environment variables and connect to Out Plane's managed PostgreSQL instances without additional configuration.

When to Choose Laravel

Laravel is the right choice when:

• Your team works primarily in PHP or has an existing PHP codebase
• You need a robust, built-in queue system with retries, delays, and batching
• You want real-time features through Laravel Echo with WebSocket broadcasting
• You are building an elegant REST or GraphQL API and want expressive, fluent query syntax
• Your project requires complex background job workflows — pipelines, chains, batches
• You want fine-grained control over authentication flows from day one
• You are building a SaaS product where the queue system is a core architectural piece

Laravel's queue system, event broadcasting, and package ecosystem (Livewire, Inertia, Filament) make it exceptionally productive for building complete web applications in PHP without leaving the framework.

When to Choose Django

Django is the right choice when:

• Your team works in Python or the project integrates with a Python-based data pipeline
• You need an auto-generated admin panel for managing content, users, or internal data — Django's admin is one of the best in any framework
• Your application touches machine learning models, data science notebooks, or Python scientific libraries (NumPy, pandas, scikit-learn)
• You are prototyping quickly and want auth, admin, ORM, and migrations working in a single django-admin startproject command
• You are building a content management system, editorial tool, or data-heavy internal application
• You want auto-generated database migrations from model changes — no manual migration files to write

Django's auto-generated admin panel is a genuine differentiator. For applications where internal teams need to manage records, moderate content, or view data, django.contrib.admin provides a functional management interface with no additional code.

Summary

Laravel and Django are both mature, production-ready frameworks with large ecosystems and long track records. The choice between them is a choice between PHP and Python as much as it is a choice between the frameworks themselves.

Choose Laravel when your team is PHP-native, when the built-in queue system is important to your architecture, or when you need granular control over authentication flows and real-time features. The framework's elegance and cohesion reward developers who work within its conventions.

Choose Django when your team works in Python, when you need the admin panel for internal tooling, or when the project connects to the Python data science and machine learning ecosystem. Auto-generated migrations and the built-in auth system keep early-stage development fast.

Both frameworks deploy cleanly on Out Plane with minimal configuration.

Deploy either framework today: Laravel deployment guide | Django deployment guide. Get started with Out Plane.