Let's Learn Laravel & Livewire: A Guided Path For Beginners (Udemy.com)
Learn The Essential Concepts of PHP, Laravel (11) and Livewire To Launch A New Career!
Created by: Brad Schiff
Last updated April 2025
Our take
Based on the ratings of 1,342 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in April 2025. No course pays to be reviewed.
Brad Schiff's course is a 17.2 hour, 95 lecture build of one social-style app, from an empty folder to a live site. It starts with the PHP language itself, then covers login, posts, avatar uploads, following other users, search, chat, email, a Sanctum API and a Livewire section. It ends with Docker practice and a real VPS deploy. The syllabus assumes no framework background, and only basic HTML is listed as a requirement.
Reviewers like the teaching most. They describe clear step-by-step explanations, resources for every lesson, and a project that really does end on a live https site. Of 1,342 ratings, 1,021 are five stars. The complaints are more specific. Some code is outdated for Laravel 11, so learners see errors Brad doesn't, and a few say topics get only a brief pass instead of real depth, with one suggesting the chat room belongs in a separate course. Two reviewers say instructor help is thin, with Q&A questions left unanswered for weeks, which stings when something breaks.
There are no quizzes or coding exercises, so it is a follow-along build, not practice. The last update was April 2025, and the beginner label is optimistic for anyone who freezes at error messages. Expect to search for fixes now and then. For people who want to see a whole Laravel app go from nothing to hosted, it is a solid pick, just not a hand-holding one.
Pros
- Brad's step-by-step teaching is praised as clear, with resources for each lesson
- Builds one app from an empty folder to a live https site on a real VPS
- Covers Livewire, a Sanctum API, email and Docker practice in one path
- Starts with PHP itself, so no framework experience is assumed
Cons
- Some code is outdated for Laravel 11, so learners hit errors Brad does not
- Q&A questions reportedly sit unanswered for weeks, so support is thin
- No quizzes or exercises, and some topics get only a quick pass
Brad is a fantastic teacher! He walks through a project from ground zero to live, running web app (with https) and explains what is going on at each step.
Fits true beginners to PHP, though reviewers say debugging outdated code is tough for first-timers.
What you will learn
- The PHP language itself
- How to setup your personal computer for Laravel practice
- How to keep your code organized (we actually take the time to understand the MVC pattern)
- How to deploy your app up to the web (both local Docker practice, and a real public Linux VPS)
Course content
17 sections · 95 lectures · 17 hours of video 15 articles
- 1Introduction 2 free previews10 lectures · 1.3 hours
- 2Laravel Introduction7 lectures · 1.1 hours
- 3Database Basics6 lectures · 1.3 hours
- 4Authentication Basics2 lectures · 40 min
- 5Blog Posts10 lectures · 2.3 hours
- 6User Uploaded Files (Avatar)4 lectures · 53 min
- 7Users Following Each Other9 lectures · 1.8 hours
- 8Search3 lectures · 35 min
- 9Chat5 lectures · 42 min
- 10Livewire10 lectures · 2 hours
- 11Email3 lectures · 34 min
- 12Cache2 lectures · 11 min
- 13API Authentication (Sanctum)2 lectures · 25 min
- 14Deploying Laravel To Host (Going Live)5 lectures · 46 min
- 15Legacy Archive (Not Necessary To Watch)3 lectures · 23 min
- 16Going Live Practice5 lectures · 56 min
- 17Deploying To Actual VPS9 lectures · 1.3 hours
Who it is for
The instructor says it suits
- Anyone who wants to begin creating web applications using Laravel & PHP.
What you need before you start
- No programming experience is required, but a basic understanding of HTML will be helpful.
- A computer that you are allowed to install software on, and an internet connection.
How it compares
Against the other 61 rated Udemy courses in Laravel on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 67% of them
- Reviews1,342#7 of 62 by number of reviews
- Length17.2 hourslonger than 57% of them
- Last updatedApril 2025more recently than 75% of them
Course Description
Updated in November 2024 to include version 11 of Laravel and also a brand new chapter about the amazing Livewire framework.
Learn the incredibly popular and in demand Laravel (version 11) framework. There are countless Laravel courses in the world; here's what makes this one unique:
No assumptions that you already understand the PHP language.
No assumptions that you already understand the "Model View Controller" pattern.
No assumptions that you already understand how to setup a dev environment on your computer.
No assumptions that you already understand how to deploy a website.
No assumptions that you already understand the Linux command-line.
Laravel is an amazing framework, but because it is so feature-complete I've noticed that a lot of guides and tutorials get overly ambitious and introduce 10 or 20 new concepts in a single lesson which is frustrating when you're a beginner and you're trying to actually understand why you're doing what you're doing. I've also noticed a lot of tutorials assume you've already used lots of other web application frameworks before Laravel, and so they don't actually explain any of the organizational or conceptual pieces of the puzzle.
This course is different because I assume that Laravel is the first web application framework you've ever attempted to learn, and so we move at a pace where you can actually absorb the big-picture concepts that exist in all frameworks; not just Laravel.
Here's what we'll learn in the course:
The PHP language itself
Getting our computer ready for Laravel
User registration, log in, log out
Profile Photo Upload (server-side resize & storage)
The Blade Template Engine
Composer the PHP Dependency Manager
Form Validation
Gates, Policies, Permissions (e.g. You can only edit your own posts and not other people's posts)
Relationships; letting one user follow another user
How to use Models to query for the exact data you want (e.g. homepage feed of posts from the users you follow)
How to send automated emails from your app
Add API URLS that allow users to login and create & delete posts from outside the context of a web browser
Use Docker to practice deploying to a Linux server
Configure a real public Ubuntu VPS to host our Laravel app with a real domain
Setup our VPS as a Git server that you can push to for effortless future updates to your live site
I encourage you to watch the freely available first lesson titled "Welcome To The Course" to get a better feel for the course.
This course may be brand new, but this isn’t my first time teaching. I’ve led training sessions for Fortune 500 companies and I’ve already helped over 200,000 people on Udemy and received the following feedback:
"Brad definitely has some of the best techniques to embed the lesson into your mind… hands down these are the best tutorials I have had the opportunity to view."
"Presentation is concise without being tedious… you honestly feel that you have a thorough understanding of the subject."
"…[Brad] explained the process. Not memorize this or that, he explained the process. If you're looking to take a course to understand the foundations of creating websites, look no further."
Become highly valuable and relevant to the companies that are hiring Laravel developers; in one convenient place alongside one instructor. If you're ready to begin coding your own applications from the ground up - I'll see you on the inside!
Instructor Details
- 4.6 Rating
1,342 Reviews
Brad Schiff
Hi, I'm Brad and I’ve taught web development to countless coworkers and held training sessions for fortune 100 companies.
I also teach local night classes and run a somewhat popular YouTube channel named LearnWebCode.
I’m a front-end developer, designer, and educator. I’ve been building user interfaces for over a decade for the world's largest brands, international technology leaders, and national political campaigns.
I'm fortunate to enjoy the development work I do, but my true passion is helping people learn.
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Reviews
By John B. on 6/25/2026
Some good explanations and it started as a fun project. However, there's no additional help provided by the instructor if you get stuck and it's not very active with students providing feedback. Searching how to fix things with AI is somewhat effective but I continued to have a lot of errors in both VS Code Intelliphense and in the project. The meme, "it works on my machine" comes to mind. Overall, I enjoyed the instructors descriptions but could use a bit more of that sort of thing, especially when marketed to 'beginners.'
By Anonymized User on 12/9/2025
Learn The Essential Concepts of PHP, Laravel (11) and Livewire to Launch a New Career!" is an outstanding course for anyone looking to build a strong foundation in modern web development. The explanations are clear, practical, and beginner-friendly, yet detailed enough for intermediate learners. Laravel 11 and Livewire are taught in a way that makes complex concepts easy to understand, and the hands-on projects really help solidify the knowledge.
By Cp on 10/30/2025
Brad is a fantastic teacher! He walks through a project from ground zero to live, running web app (with https) and explains what is going on at each step. This is a fantastic tutorial for anyone who wants to learn Laravel. It is truly a guided path and covers database connection and migrations, SPA behavior with Livewire, using the Blade engine, MVC architecture, creating API endpoints and interacting with them using Postman or Insomnia, and even includes 3 deployment scenarios: a shared hosting account with DreamHost, a Docker container on the local computer that mimics a VPS, and a shared VPS account setup with Linode.com/Akamai. Great stuff!
By Staline Ngoma on 4/28/2024
I am from a DevOps environment where I am mostly used to server side configurations, Kubernetes and many other things that are not part of developers work. So, for my first time to start a course on web development, I can say I am entirely satisfied with the way Brad teaches. I can’t believe there are no slides but everything perfectly clicks and is digestible. He takes you from local development to a production live environment and this is my first time to see how this is done. Extremely knowledgeable, I actually liked when he skipped the GitLab/Bitbucket/GitHub servers to push the commits straight to the vps. I believe however as a humble suggestion he can containerize the application via a Dockerfile and later connect it with a Kubernetes environment like Minikube for local environment or EKS for production environment to give extra 5 stars ⭐️ to the course. A small remark is that the life chat does not keep the conversations between the users. This course was amazing and thanking for passing down the knowledge with such a great energy.
By Darren Wormald on 4/18/2024
Lots of really useful information in this course with lots learned, the app that is built is very simple and aids the learning process some courses try to create far too much too quickly and I think this course reallyu finds a balance between learning and creating an app. Also the section on deploying is a really useful starting point. I have a few of Brad's courses and he always delivers. Like all educators he sometimes goes around the houses to say something simple but I generally run courses at a faster speed then slow them down at important parts so this is never an issue. You won't regret buying this course if you are interested in learning Laravel
By Ramamoorthy .S on 3/28/2024
Its really a good journey of learning Laravel. So as a complete front end developer I started to learn this course so it helped me to learn a completely a new language and gain knowledge on SQL databases and server side. Now I feel confident that I can able to develop websites similar to the one that was explained in this course. Also its gave me a starting point to learn more advanced topics in Laravel. Thankyou for this wonderful Journey of learning.
By Sam Blaha on 2/20/2024
Brad is the best teacher when it comes to learning to how code/program. I myself used to be a programming instructor and I can say I learned many good habits from Brad. This course is right on par with what I would expect from him. If you are a bit more advanced you may want to do things your way and not as manual as he does in this course. Like if you're a Windows user and want to use Laragon, go for it. It is still easy enough to follow and make the necessary changes. Again, wonderful course. Brad never gives too much info or doesn't assume you may already know something. A teacher than can explain complex topics in a very simple manner are the ones to follow.
By Arun. S on 11/25/2023
I enjoyed the course a lot. Brad is a very good teacher and I felt his teaching style worked well for me. However, I would recommend students new to programming, to audit a beginner level PHP course before you give this course a go. You may feel a bit overwhelmed otherwise.
By Noah Gruenert on 7/20/2023
Thank you! This course was clear and easy to follow. The instructor spoke and taught at a speed that was higher than other courses I have taken, but I appreciated this because it meant the content was condensed and clear, instead of being extra inflated. I rarely watched the videos at higher playback speeds like I would normally do in online courses, and instead I found myself stopping to catch up and really understand a lot of the time. I also made several typing errors or mistakes, but rewatching the videos and explaining to myself what might be going wrong helped me to get through all the bugs I encountered, and I was able to follow along to full completion. I used several different software systems that were not the same as the ones in the videos, but that helped me to understand more about how each bit of code works, and not rely on doing exactly what the instructor does, to get the same effect. Overall, highly effective!
By Esraa Hamada on 7/15/2023
I've almost finished the course and I wanted to share my review. Let me start by saying that the course is awesome, but I do have a few constructive criticisms. Firstly, I think it would be beneficial for students to have some prior knowledge of PHP and relational databases before taking this course. The instructor doesn't go into great detail about the language, and there's no mention of topics such as dividing tables or creating foreign keys. Secondly, I was hoping for more in-depth coverage of mobile APIs. While I appreciate that the course covers website development as a whole, I subscribed specifically to learn about mobile APIs, and felt that the instructor moved through that section quite quickly. That being said, I did find the material informative and relevant to my needs. Thirdly, I think it would be helpful if the instructor provided more detailed documentation and explained where he gets his syntax from instead of simply typing the name of the functions. This would enable students to search for specific functions and features in laravel more easily after completing the course. Finally, I think it would be helpful if the instructor discussed different hosting options (such as VPS, shared hosting, cloud hosting, etc.) and how to choose between them. Overall, I highly recommend this course, but these are just a few areas where I think it could be improved.
Quality Score
No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.
Overall Score : 92 / 100












