Laravel is a PHP framework for modern web apps. Recently upgraded to version 5, Laravel is a mature system that continues to win support due to its elegance and stability. Laravel ships with built-in support for database migrations, object-relational mapping, routing, and authentication, making it easier for developers to start and maintain their work.

If you want to learn Laravel, or if you already use the framework and want to take your knowledge to a new level, check out these eight courses, which will teach you to master Laravel 5, process payments with Laravel Cashier, build a CMS with Laravel, and much more.

1. Get Started With Laravel 5

In this course, you'll start with the basics of the Laravel framework. You'll begin by preparing a dev environment and learning how to configure Laravel. Then you'll move on to learn foundational topics such as routing and requests, responses, views, sessions, emails, forms, and using databases.

2. Build a REST API With Laravel

REST APIs are useful for all kinds of apps. They can be the back-end to a front-end web app, they can store data for a mobile app, or they can provide services to other apps or APIs. There are a lot of moving pieces to coding a RESTful API, but having the right tools can make it a lot easier. Laravel is one such tool—a great platform for building REST APIs.

In this course, Envato Tuts+ instructor Jeremy McPeak will teach you how to write a RESTful API using Laravel. Follow along as Jeremy codes a complete API that serves data on flights, airports, and airline customers. Along the way, you'll learn how to define and seed a database, accept and validate input, and protect the API.

3. Process Payments With Stripe and Laravel Cashier

Stripe is a payment-processing service that comes with a suite of easy-to-use APIs and powers e-commerce for businesses of all sizes. 

In this course, Envato Tuts+ instructor Jason Lewis will show you how to process payments on Stripe using Laravel Cashier. You'll cover a number of key topics, including how to prepare your database for payments and pointers to the security concerns you should be aware of when handling cardholder data. 

You'll also learn how to process single, one-off payments for an online shopping cart, and even how to handle Stripe subscriptions.

4. Authentication With Laravel

Authentication is extremely important, and as a result, authentication is extremely difficult to get right. But Laravel's built-in authentication system makes it easier to protect the portions of your web application that need protecting.

In this course, Envato Tuts+ instructor Jeremy McPeak will show you how to use Laravel's basic authentication system, and how to customize this system to fit your own application's needs. You'll see how to create users, user providers and guards to customize every aspect of Laravel authentication.

5. How It's Made: Laravel Router

Laravel is known for its powerful and developer-friendly router. The router allows you to configure all the URL endpoints of your app with a concise syntax and all in one place.

In this quick Coffee Break Course, Envato Tuts+ instructor Matthew Machuga will take you on a deep dive through the implementation of Laravel Router. You will see how it works, and stop to analyze some of the decisions and nuances in its design. You'll also get a chance to see some of the awesome features that have been recently added to it.

6. How It Works: Laravel Middleware

There are lots of times we need to run a bit of code before or after a request is made to a web server. For example, we might need to authenticate a certain route, or we might want to log requests. That's where Laravel middleware comes in!

In this Coffee Break Course, Envato Tuts+ instructor Matthew Machuga will show you how middleware works, how it flows through an application, and how to create middleware of your own.

7. Build a CMS With Laravel

In this course, Envato Tuts+ instructor Jason Lewis will show you how to build a functioning content management system (CMS) with the Laravel PHP framework. You’ll understand some of the tasks and problems that are common to so many web development projects and explore different possible solutions to them. You’ll be starting your CMS from scratch—a great way to expand your knowledge of the Laravel framework. This course will teach you the fundamentals required to develop top-notch Laravel applications.

8. Create a REST API With Lumen

Lumen is Laravel's little brother: a fast, lightweight micro-framework for writing RESTful APIs. With just a little bit of code, you can use Lumen to build a secure and extremely fast RESTful API.

In this course, Envato Tuts+ instructor Jeremy McPeak will show you how to get started building REST APIs with the Lumen framework. You'll start by setting up a Lumen development environment and go on to build a complete API for a music store, including routing, MySQL database connectivity, and security.

Start Learning With a Free Trial

You can take all of these and more PHP courses with a free 10-day trial of our monthly subscription. So get started today, and start learning the practical Laravel skills that will take your PHP development work to a new level.