Laravel is a decent web framework, that comes with batteries included and _often_ has sensible ways to override and avoid things if you don't want them.
For example, you don't need to use the ORM at all and can just use their query builder (which is pretty good). It's there if you want it, but the framework works happily without it and doesn't get in your way in that regard.
I inherited a Laravel codebase from a previous contractor and it was reasonably ergonomic to navigate and extend, because I was able to lean on the framework documentation to understand how it all worked. But there were several points where it was _not_ reasonable, because of Laravel/PHP magic and those were pretty painful to figure out and debug.
The reason I wouldn't choose it myself anymore is the magic, the little surprises and hard to debug idiosyncrasies that it provides in order to look pretty. Also generally Laravel, PHP and related ecosystems are moving too fast and are difficult to keep up to date without breaking and/or misunderstanding things. It's not quite JS/npm level of churn, but unnecessary regardless. A more minor point is the baseline performance tends to be on the lower end of what I need.
There are ecosystems out there that value stability and clarity more and provide better tools to test and debug the code if necessary, and I've come to appreciate those things much more with experience than other factors such as reducing the initial development time.
What other ecosystems and frameworks are you talking about? I've tried many things across many ecosystems in the last 20+ years and so far, despite any drawbacks it could have Laravel is the best one by a long shot. So I'm curious what those other better solutions you mention are and what are its trade offs.
For example, you don't need to use the ORM at all and can just use their query builder (which is pretty good). It's there if you want it, but the framework works happily without it and doesn't get in your way in that regard.
I inherited a Laravel codebase from a previous contractor and it was reasonably ergonomic to navigate and extend, because I was able to lean on the framework documentation to understand how it all worked. But there were several points where it was _not_ reasonable, because of Laravel/PHP magic and those were pretty painful to figure out and debug.
The reason I wouldn't choose it myself anymore is the magic, the little surprises and hard to debug idiosyncrasies that it provides in order to look pretty. Also generally Laravel, PHP and related ecosystems are moving too fast and are difficult to keep up to date without breaking and/or misunderstanding things. It's not quite JS/npm level of churn, but unnecessary regardless. A more minor point is the baseline performance tends to be on the lower end of what I need.
There are ecosystems out there that value stability and clarity more and provide better tools to test and debug the code if necessary, and I've come to appreciate those things much more with experience than other factors such as reducing the initial development time.