Laravel Breeze vs Laravel UI: Choosing the Right Starter Kit for Laravel 12

As Laravel evolves, so do its official starter kits. With Laravel 12, developers now have two fully compatible options for authentication scaffolding: the modern Laravel Breeze and the classic Laravel UI. Both have their unique strengths, updated support, and preferred use cases.

In this article, we’ll break down the differences between Laravel Breeze and Laravel UI, explore their latest updates, and help you decide which one suits your project best.

🧩 Introduction to Laravel Breeze

Laravel Breeze is a lightweight, modern starter kit introduced as a minimalist alternative to Laravel Jetstream. It's designed to provide only the essentials: user authentication and a simple UI.

✨ Key Features:

• Authentication: Login, registration, password reset, email verification, and password confirmation.
• Frontend: Blade templates styled with Tailwind CSS.
• Optional: Inertia.js support with Vue or React.
• Clean Structure: Minimal codebase with full control over views and routes.

🆕 Latest Breeze Updates (As of Laravel 12)

• Version 2.3.5 (Feb 24, 2025): Laravel 12 compatibility.

• Version 2.3.6 (Mar 12, 2025): Upgraded Volt preset to ^1.7.0.

• Other Improvements:

  • Support for light/dark theme logos.
  • Better multiselect hints.
  • Removal of outdated lockfiles in the API stack.

🛠 Installation

composer require laravel/breeze --dev
php artisan breeze:install
npm install && npm run dev
php artisan migrate

🎨 Introduction to Laravel UI

Laravel UI is the original frontend scaffolding extracted from Laravel core in version 6. It continues to serve developers who prefer Bootstrap and a more traditional approach.

✨ Key Features:

• Authentication: Login, registration, email verification, etc.
• Frontend: Blade templates styled with Bootstrap.
• JS Framework Support: Presets for Vue and React (without Inertia).
• Legacy Friendly: Perfect for upgrading older Laravel apps.

🆕 Latest Laravel UI Updates

• Version 4.6.1 (Jan 28, 2025): Laravel 12 compatibility.

• Recent Fixes:

  • PHPUnit v11 compatibility.
  • Logout routes now require auth.
  • Lazy-loaded commands for improved performance.

🛠 Installation

composer require laravel/ui
php artisan ui bootstrap --auth
npm install && npm run dev
php artisan migrate

🔍 Laravel Breeze vs Laravel UI – Feature Comparison

🚀 Laravel 12 + Starter Kit Enhancements

With Laravel 12, you get:

• Attribute-based routing (cleaner route definitions)
• Read-only model properties
• Unified model-controller-migration generation
• Performance & DX improvements

Both Breeze and UI now support these features, so you’re free to pick your starter kit without sacrificing the latest Laravel capabilities.

🧠 When to Use What?

✅ Choose Laravel Breeze if:

• You’re starting a new project.
• You prefer Tailwind CSS and modern tooling.
• You want a minimal and clean foundation to build upon.
• You’re planning to extend with Inertia + Vue/React.

✅ Choose Laravel UI if:

• You’re upgrading a legacy app built before Laravel 8.
• You or your team are more comfortable with Bootstrap.
• You don’t need Inertia or Jetstream-level complexity.
• You want quick Bootstrap-based scaffolding with Vue/React support.

🧾 Final Thoughts

Both Laravel Breeze and Laravel UI are now fully compatible with Laravel 12, allowing developers to choose the tool that best fits their workflow and UI preference.

• Breeze is best for modern, clean, Tailwind-based applications.
• UI is best for maintaining and upgrading legacy projects or those that rely on Bootstrap.

Whichever you choose, Laravel ensures a smooth experience with robust authentication features and developer-first tooling.

✍️ Have you used both? Which do you prefer in your projects? Let me know in the comments or tag me on social media!