Im a PHP dev and used both extensively and I would say both frameworks are great in their own ways, Laravel is geared more towards beginners / ease and speed of development since there is more handholding and “magic” stuff, whilst Symfony feels more “formal” and is used in larger projects.

Also, i feel Laravel is used more in the US and Symfony more in Europe.

So its really a preference thing here, you cant really go wrong either way.