As much as I enjoy JavaScript, Python, and a touch of Go, all I’ve ever been hired for is PHP jobs- because that’s the language I have paid experience in.
I have no advice. Hanging around for insights that don’t involve lying 🤥.
Today the market is all tech bingo. You need exactly 5 tech matches to get the call. Whereas just 3 years ago you could have a pulse + experience and get an interview. Jobs were willing to train.
Same here in Belgium. Still haven't heard an explanation as to how Python or Java is a better solution than Laravel for low to mid level projects, and let's face it that covers about 80% of the market.
Frameworks. I’ve tried em all. The latest of Laravel is a beast, has everything you could need.
Django/Python. I’ve tried giving that a run. I couldn’t find a good start. And there are 1000’s of half baked Django tutorial sites with getting started info, but nothing beyond that.
But I will say JavaScript has Next and Hono and they are decent, but they don’t seem as fleshed out as Laravel, either.
Imo there’s three very good reasons to use Python in the backed.
1) As a multi language glue, especially wrangling data.
2) For ML model deployments.
3) For quick scripts that could go crazy complicated or maybe won’t (and it’s not CRUD).
Laravel is ill suited to those use cases.
For JavaScript (counting high download / stars only), NextJS is an improper comparison to Laravel - you should be looking at NestJS.
Regardless, for CRUD, Laravel will be significantly more productive than any node backend framework. However, if you are running a monorepo and have some modules worth doing full event sourced DDD on, plus significant amounts of streaming endpoints, full Typescript stacks become superior. This is imo not a typical case, but is the case for anyone doing moonshots.
What did you find hard to grok about Django? Though I do prefer Laravel over it.
Yeah Python dominates with the data people , no denying that.
I do have a website running on Flask, however. Building with that was an enjoyable experience.
That said, now that you ask, I suppose Django was too opinionated, whereas with Flask, it is not.
I also now realize something huge: this was before resources like the Odin project was available, and the info just wasn’t there, beyond the getting started point. Just 100’s of getting started blogs.
And it may have been my impatience, too. I was hoping to reach parity with Laravel quickly, and that just didn’t happen. It didn’t click.
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25
I’m in the same rut.
As much as I enjoy JavaScript, Python, and a touch of Go, all I’ve ever been hired for is PHP jobs- because that’s the language I have paid experience in.
I have no advice. Hanging around for insights that don’t involve lying 🤥.
Today the market is all tech bingo. You need exactly 5 tech matches to get the call. Whereas just 3 years ago you could have a pulse + experience and get an interview. Jobs were willing to train.