Using Laravel with Vue for Full-Stack Apps

Building a modern web application often means choosing between two paths: a fully decoupled frontend and backend, or a tightly integrated monolith. The Laravel Vue full-stack combination offers a pragmatic middle ground—one that delivers SPA-like experiences without the overhead of maintaining separate API contracts.

This article examines how Laravel with Vue 3 works in the current ecosystem, focusing on architectural decisions, tooling choices, and when this stack makes sense for your project.

The Modern Laravel Frontend Stack

Laravel has evolved significantly in how it handles frontend assets. Vite replaced Laravel Mix as the default build tool starting with Laravel 9, bringing faster hot module replacement and native ES module support. The Laravel Vite setup integrates seamlessly with Vue 3, requiring minimal configuration to get started.

The typical modern stack looks like this:

• Vite for asset bundling and development server
• Vue 3 with the Composition API for reactive UI components
• Inertia.js as the glue between Laravel and Vue
• Pinia for client-side state management when needed

This combination creates a unified development workflow where Laravel handles routing, authentication, and data while Vue drives the reactive interface.

How Inertia.js Laravel Vue Integration Works

Inertia.js solves a specific problem: building SPAs without creating a separate API layer. Instead of returning JSON from your Laravel controllers, you return Inertia responses that include both the Vue component name and its props.

The request flow works like this:

1. User clicks a link wrapped in Inertia’s <Link> component
2. Inertia intercepts the click and makes an XHR request
3. Laravel returns JSON containing the component name and data
4. Inertia swaps the Vue component without a full page reload

This approach means you keep Laravel’s routing, middleware, and validation exactly as you’d use them in a traditional application. The frontend simply becomes a different rendering layer.

When Inertia Makes Sense

Inertia.js Laravel Vue integration works best when:

• A single team owns both frontend and backend
• You want SPA behavior without building REST or GraphQL APIs
• SEO requirements can be met with Inertia’s SSR support
• The application doesn’t need to serve mobile apps or third-party consumers

If you need a public API for mobile apps or external integrations, a decoupled architecture with a dedicated API remains the better choice.

Vue 3 Composition API with Laravel

Vue 3’s Composition API pairs naturally with Laravel’s data-passing patterns. When using Inertia, props flow directly from your controller to your Vue component:

// In your Vue component
const props = defineProps({
  users: Array,
  filters: Object,
})

This eliminates the ceremony of fetching data in onMounted hooks. The data arrives ready to use, validated by Laravel before it reaches the frontend.

For client-side state that doesn’t need server persistence—UI toggles, form drafts, temporary selections—Pinia provides lightweight state management without the boilerplate of older solutions.

Developer Experience and Tooling

Laravel 12+ ships new official starter kits (Vue, React, Livewire). The Vue starter kit is an Inertia + Vue 3 (Composition API) setup with TypeScript and Tailwind; Jetstream remains an alternative starter kit with an Inertia (Vue) stack for teams that want its feature set. Inertia SSR is supported, but it’s an optional add-on you enable/configure separately.

For form handling, Laravel Precognition enables real-time validation by running your server-side validation rules as users type. This creates tight feedback loops without duplicating validation logic in JavaScript.

The development experience benefits from:

• Vite’s sub-second hot reloads
• Laravel’s error handling surfaced directly in Vue components
• Shared TypeScript types generated from Laravel models
• Single deployment artifact containing both frontend and backend

Performance and Maintainability Tradeoffs

The Inertia approach trades some flexibility for reduced complexity. You won’t maintain OpenAPI specs or worry about API versioning. But you also can’t easily swap the frontend framework or serve multiple clients from the same backend.

Performance characteristics differ from traditional SPAs. Initial page loads include server-rendered HTML (with SSR enabled), while subsequent navigation feels instant due to partial page updates. Bundle sizes stay manageable because you’re not shipping a routing library or data-fetching layer.

For teams already comfortable with Laravel, the learning curve is minimal. Frontend developers new to PHP will need to understand Laravel’s conventions, but the integration points are well-documented and predictable.

Conclusion

The Laravel Vue full-stack approach fits projects where development speed and team cohesion matter more than architectural flexibility. It excels for admin panels, internal tools, SaaS applications, and content-heavy sites that need reactive interfaces.

Consider a decoupled architecture instead if you’re building a platform with multiple frontend clients, need maximum frontend team autonomy, or anticipate significant API consumers beyond your own application.

The modern Laravel frontend stack isn’t the right choice for every project. But for the right use case, it eliminates substantial complexity while delivering the responsive experience users expect.

FAQs

Gain Debugging Superpowers

Unleash the power of session replay to reproduce bugs, track slowdowns and uncover frustrations in your app. Get complete visibility into your frontend with OpenReplay — the most advanced open-source session replay tool for developers. Check our GitHub repo and join the thousands of developers in our community.