Laravel development at ZeroPixel
Laravel is the framework that made PHP respectable again, and it powers an enormous amount of British business software — booking systems, member portals, order management, the internal tool that quietly runs the company. If that describes your system, replacing it with something fashionable is rarely the right move. Modernising it usually is.
We take on Laravel work in two shapes. The first is new builds where PHP is the sensible choice: your team knows it, your hosting is set up for it, or the application is a straightforward data-and-forms system where Laravel's batteries-included approach gets you there faster than assembling a JavaScript stack. The second is rescue work, which is most of what we're asked for.
Rescue jobs arrive looking similar every time: an application built years ago by a developer who's gone, running an unsupported PHP version, with no tests, no deployment process, and a change request nobody dares to make. The route out is methodical — get it into version control, get it onto a supported PHP and Laravel version, add tests around the parts that matter, then start changing things safely. It's less dramatic than a rebuild and usually a fraction of the cost.
What we build with Laravel
Business software rather than showpieces — the systems that run operations and have to keep working every day.
Business applications & portals
Customer portals, booking systems, membership areas and order management — with authentication, permissions and audit trails built in.
APIs & background jobs
Documented REST APIs for your app or mobile client, plus queues, scheduled tasks and notifications running reliably out of sight.
Admin panels & back office
The screens your team lives in — records, filters, bulk actions and exports — built fast on Laravel's admin tooling rather than from scratch.
Legacy PHP rescues & upgrades
Unsupported PHP and old Laravel versions brought current, put under version control and tests, and made safe to change again.
Why hire ZeroPixel for Laravel work
- We won't sell you a rewrite you don't need
- A working PHP application that's five years behind is a maintenance job, not a write-off. Rewriting means re-earning every edge case your business already solved. We only recommend it when upgrading genuinely costs more.
- Upgrades done in the right order
- Version control, then a staging environment, then the PHP version, then Laravel, then dependencies — with tests added around the risky parts first. The sequence is what keeps the business running while it happens.
- Security taken seriously
- Unsupported PHP versions stop getting security patches, and old Laravel applications tend to accumulate injection and access-control problems. Upgrades come with a review of authentication, permissions and dependency vulnerabilities as standard.
Laravel — common questions
Should we rebuild our old PHP system or upgrade it?
Upgrade, in most cases. A system that's been running your business for years contains hundreds of decisions and edge cases that nobody has written down — a rewrite means rediscovering all of them, usually at three times the estimate. We audit the codebase and give you an honest cost comparison for both routes. Sometimes rebuilding genuinely is cheaper, and we say so when it is.
Our developer left and nobody understands the code. Can you help?
Yes, this is a large part of our Laravel work. The first step is an audit that tells you what you actually own: what it does, what state it's in, what's at risk, and what it would take to make it safe to change. You get that as a written document you keep regardless of whether you hire us for the work afterwards.
Laravel or Node.js for a new project?
Laravel when your team writes PHP, your hosting is already PHP, or the application is mostly forms, records and reports — it gets you there fast with far less assembly. Node.js and TypeScript when the product is heavily interactive, realtime, or shares a codebase with a React or Next.js frontend. We build both, so the recommendation follows your situation rather than our convenience.
Can Laravel work with a React or Vue frontend?
Yes, and it's a common pattern — Laravel as a typed API with Next.js or Nuxt in front, or Inertia to get a modern frontend without building a separate API layer. Which one fits depends on whether you need public pages to rank in search and whether the frontend will ever be a separate mobile client. We'll walk you through the trade-off in plain terms.
How much does Laravel work cost?
An audit of an existing system is a small fixed price and delivered as a written report. Upgrades and rescues are quoted once we've seen the code — the range is wide because the codebases are. New applications sit in the same range as our other product work: four figures for focused systems, quoted on scope for larger platforms, fixed and in writing either way.
Beyond Laravel
A stack is a set of choices that have to work together — these are the pieces we most often pair with Laravel, and where we do it.
Building with Laravel?
Tell us what you're making — we'll reply within one working day with an honest take and a fixed quote.