Installing Laravel on a Mac: A Step-by-Step Guide

Laravel is a free, open-source PHP framework used for web application development. It is considered one of the most popular PHP frameworks due to its elegant syntax and robust features. This guide will walk you through the process of installing Laravel on a Mac.

Prerequisites: Before getting started, make sure you have the following installed on your Mac:

Step 1: Install Laravel using Composer

Laravel can be installed using the command line and Composer. To do this, open Terminal and run the following command:

composer global require "laravel/installer"

This will install the Laravel installer package globally on your system, allowing you to create new Laravel projects from the command line.

Step 2: Create a New Laravel Project

After installing Laravel, create a new project using the following command:

laravel new projectname

Replace “projectname” with the name you want to give to your project.

Step 3: Install Dependencies

Now that you have created your project, you need to install its dependencies. To do this, navigate to your project’s directory using the cd command and run the following command:

composer install

This will install all the necessary dependencies for your Laravel project.

Step 4: Serve the Project

To serve the Laravel project, run the following command in your project’s directory:

php artisan serve

This will start a local development server at http://localhost:8000. You can access your Laravel project by navigating to this URL in your web browser.

That’s it! You have successfully installed Laravel on your Mac. You can now start building your web application using Laravel’s elegant syntax and robust features. If you run into any issues, check the Laravel documentation for further assistance. Good luck!