Could Nova be the successor of Backpack? Are the two products complementary? As usual, everything is in the details. Let’s compare them.
Laravel Nova has been released late August 2018 with a great enthousiasm from the Laravel community, despite its price. I immediately bought it, to see if it can replace what I used until now: Laravel Backpack. I tested also other “admin panels” products, such as Laravel Voyager or Laravel Admin Architect, but I always came back to Backpack. This time, with Nova, I was sure that it will be a great competitor. Let’s assess this concretely.
Installation & First feelings
The installation is easy for both products. I had no problem, even the first time I did it. The default theme of Laravel Nova is much more beautiful than Laravel Backpack, but as a default theme is made to be customized this is not a big deal.