Hey... I do use Laravel framework professionally since 2013 up to nowadays, and I really like and recommend this framework. It is the best. Go for it!
But, sincerely, this enthusiastic merchandise of it makes me laugh. Even myself can't take it seriously. Pardon me, I'm just being sincere: it really made me laugh. Sorry.
Let me pick as concrete example this snippet of three things in a row:
Laravel Scout: Driver based full-text search for Eloquent, complete with pagination and automatic indexing. With laravel Scout, you can do:
$orders = App\Order::search('Star Trek')->get();
Laravel Echo: Event broadcasting, evolved. Echo brings the power of WebSockets to your application without the complexity.
Laravel Passport: API authentication without the headache. Passport is an OAuth2 server which you could get ready in minutes
This sounds like pure marketing. Laravel Echo does not remove the complexity of having WebSockets in your app. It facilitates several functionalities with handy helper stuff - that's it. Please don't tell anyone they'll have their Web Sockets and no complexity. Sounds like Symfony framework merchandising saying how simple is to use their framework! Laughing out loud.
Same thing is valid for all others: Queue, oAuth, text-search - these Laravel features certainly are of high value and drastically decreases development difficulty and time.
But these wordings are misleading: "without the headache", "Event broadcasting, evolved" (meaningless), "without the complexity", "you can do App\Order::search('Star Trek')->get();"...
It looks like all will be magical, fairies will appear and delight you while the app development runs on its own, automatically by Laravel.
Why all these lies? Are you trying to sell Laravel for kids? You will have headaches. You will face complexity. You will have to configure full text search. You will have to act as a professional developer.
That being said, I confirm I greatly admire and appreciate Laravel. It boosts productivity. it really has tons of useful features, and it really does not block your way. I agree with the article point. I just think the article lost its tone and beyond a certain point it started to decrease its own value by sounding like a cheap marketing piece.
So: thanks for the effort on putting this article and publishing it. I support it, and I support Laravel. I just wanted to point out this "room for improvement" on it.