Taylor Otwell is an American software developer who created Laravel. His focus on developer experience and elegant code transformed PHP development and built a successful business around open source.
Creating Laravel
Otwell released Laravel in 2011 after becoming frustrated with existing PHP frameworks. He wanted to bring Ruby on Rails-style conventions and modern PHP practices to framework development.
Design Philosophy
Otwell emphasizes:
- Elegant, expressive syntax
- Comprehensive features out of the box
- Beautiful documentation
- Developer happiness and productivity
Building a Business
Unlike many open-source maintainers, Otwell built a sustainable business:
- Laravel Forge: Server provisioning and deployment
- Laravel Vapor: Serverless platform
- Laravel Nova: Administration panel
- Laravel Spark: SaaS starter kit
Impact on PHP
Laravel changed PHP’s reputation:
- Showed PHP code could be elegant
- Attracted developers who might have left for other languages
- Influenced PHP language evolution
- Created an ecosystem of modern PHP tools
Otwell demonstrates that open-source work can be both impactful and financially sustainable.