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Introduction

Backpack is a collection of Laravel packages that help you build custom administration panels, for anything from presentation websites to complex web applications. You can install them on top of existing Laravel installations or fresh projects.

In a nutshell:

  • Backpack will provide you with a visual interface for the admin panel (the HTML, the CSS, the JS); it pulls in the excellent CoreUI theme, with our own design called Backstrap, and adds authentication functionality & bubble notifications; when you decide to build a custom feature for your admin panel, you already have the HTML blocks for the UI, and it will look good;
  • Backpack will also help you build sections where your admins can manipulate entries for Eloquent models; we call them CRUD Panels after the most basic operations: Create, Read, Update & Delete; after understanding Backpack, you'll be able to create a CRUD panel in a few minutes per model:

One quick way is to use laracasts/generators to generate the migration, then Backpack to generate a CRUD:

# STEP 0. create migration (in case you're starting from scratch)
composer require --dev laracasts/generators
php artisan make:migration:schema create_tags_table --model=0 --schema="name:string:unique"
php artisan migrate

# STEP 1. create a Model, Request, Controller, Route and sidebar item for the admin panel
php artisan backpack:crud tag #use singular, not plural

# STEP 2. go through the generated files, customize according to your needs

Of course, if you use Backpack for work, you should consider buying our Backpack DevTools addon, which will help you generate better Migrations, Models, Seeders, Factories and CRUDs... from the comfort of your browser window 🤯 Once you get used to it, it'll be difficult to ever do this manually, ever again:

How to Start

We heavily recommend you spend a little time to understand Backpack, and only afterwards install and use it. Fortunately it's super-simple to get started. Using any of the options below will get you to a point where you can use Backpack in your projects:


Video Course Text Course Email Course

Need to Know

Requirements

  • Laravel 9.x or 8.x
  • MySQL (recommended) / PostgreSQL / SQLite / SQL Server

How does it look?

Take a look at our live demo. If you've purchased Backpack/PRO you can even install the demo and fiddle with the code. Otherwise, you can just start a new Laravel project, install Backpack\CRUD on top, and follow our text course to create a few CRUDs.

Security

Backpack has never had a critical vulnerability/hack. But there have been important security updates for dependencies (including Laravel). Please register using Github or subscribe to our twice-a-year newsletter, so we can reach you in case your admin panel becomes vulnerable in any way.

Maintenance

Backpack v5 is the current version, and is being actively maintained by the Backpack team, with the help of a wonderful community of Backpack veterans. See all contributors.

License

Starting with v5, Backpack has become open-core. The main features are now split into two packages:

Backpack\CRUD is perfect if you're building a simple admin panel - it's packed with features! It's also perfect if you're building an open-source project, the permissive license allows you to do whatever you want.

When your admin panel grows and your needs become more complex, you can purchase our Backpack\PRO add-on, which adds A LOT of features for complex use-cases (see list here). Our documentation includes instructions on how to use both Backpack\CRUD and Backpack\PRO, with all the PRO features clearly labeled PRO

Versioning, Updates and Upgrades

Starting with Backpack v5, all our packages follow semantic versioning. Here's what major.minor.patch (eg. 5.0.1) means for Backpack\CRUD:

  • major - breaking changes, major new features, complete rewrites; released once a year, in February; it adds features that were previously impossible and upgrades our dependencies; upgrading is done by following our clear and detailed upgrade guides;
  • minor - new features, released in backwards-compatible ways; every few months; update takes seconds;
  • patch - bug fixes & small non-breaking changes; historically every week; update takes seconds;

When we release a new Backpack\CRUD version, all paid addons receive support for it the same day. And because (1) we release a new version every year and (2) when you buy a Backpack addon, you get access to not only updates, but also upgrades (for 12mo), that means that... any time you buy a Backpack addon, it is very likely that you're not only buying the current version (v5 at the moment), but also the upgrade to the next version (v6 for example).

Add-ons

Backpack's core is open-source and free (Backpack\CRUD). FREE

The reason we've been able to build and maintain Backpack since 2016 is that Laravel professionals have supported us, by buying our paid products. As of 2022, these are all Backpack add-ons, which we highly recommend:

In addition to our open-source core and our closed-source addons, there are a few other addons you might want to take a look at, that treat common use cases. Some have been developed by our core team, some by our wonderful community. You can just install interfaces to manage site-wide settings, the default Laravel users table, users, groups & permissions, content for custom pages, using page templates, news articles, categories and tags, etc. FREE

For more information, please see our addons page.

Like our open-core?

Then you'll love our premium add-ons - productivity tools and tons of new features.

See Premium Add-ons