The short answer
TL;DR Under ~3,000 products with a small team: Laravel alone is enough. Large catalogs where mobile speed decides sales: Next.js in front, Laravel behind.
Over the past year we shipped three stores: one pure Laravel, one pure Next.js with a headless CMS, and one hybrid. Same team, similar budgets, very different results after six months.
How we compared
We looked at four things a store owner actually pays for: time to launch, monthly cost to keep running, speed on a mid-range phone, and how easily the in-house team could change things.
Maintenance cost
| Laravel only | Next.js only | Hybrid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to launch | 7 weeks | 9 weeks | 10 weeks |
| Server cost / month | 6M IRT | 9M IRT | 11M IRT |
| Mobile load (LCP) | 2.4s | 1.1s | 0.9s |
| Changes by in-house team | easy | needs a JS dev | admin easy, UI needs JS |
Speed and SEO
Most of the hybrid’s speed came from rendering category pages on the server and caching them for 60 seconds. Product data stays fresh, the page arrives already built.
export const revalidate = 60 // rebuild at most once a minute
export default async function Category({ params }) {
const items = await fetch(`${API}/categories/${params.slug}`)
.then(r => r.json())
return <Grid items={items} />
}For SEO the three were close once redirects and structured data were right. The bigger risk is the migration itself: we map every old URL before writing any code.
Our verdict
- Small catalog, tight budget, non-technical team → Laravel.
- Content-heavy brand site with a small shop → Next.js with a headless CMS.
- Large catalog where mobile speed sells → hybrid.
Not sure where you fit? Bring your product count and traffic to a free discovery session and we’ll tell you honestly — even if the answer is a ready-made template.