- Most Laravel apps should start with a panel builder rather than a hand-built admin.
- Filament is free and open source; Nova is the Laravel team's paid panel with yearly update renewals.
- Put permissions in Laravel policies so the admin, the API and the app follow the same rules.
- A custom admin is worth it when the back office is part of the product or the workflows are unusual.
- Check plugin support and upgrade paths before you commit, because the admin has to move with Laravel.
Should a Laravel app use Filament, Nova or a custom admin panel?
Most Laravel apps should start with a panel builder. Filament is free and open source, and suits internal tools and portals; Laravel Nova is the Laravel team's own paid panel, licensed per project. Build a custom admin when the back office is part of what customers pay for, when the workflows do not fit lists and forms, or when the design has to match the product exactly.
Whichever you choose, the admin is where staff run the business every day. Our Laravel development team starts by listing those daily tasks rather than the screens.
What does a back office actually need?
- Lists with search, filters and sorting for every record type staff work with.
- Forms with validation that match the rules in the rest of the app.
- Roles and permissions, so support staff, managers and owners see different things.
- Bulk actions and exports, such as approving many orders or downloading a report.
- A log of who changed what, especially for money, refunds and account changes.
- Dashboards with the few numbers people check daily.
The admin is also one of the items in our mobile app back-end checklist, because apps need one too.
What is Filament?
Filament describes itself as an open-source framework for building business software with Laravel. It is built on Livewire, Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS, and you define screens in PHP rather than writing every view by hand, as its documentation explains. Its packages cover panels, data tables, forms, actions, notifications and dashboard widgets, and one app can have several panels, such as an internal admin and a customer portal.
It is released under the MIT license, and its site points to hundreds of community plugins. Version 5 requires PHP 8.2 or higher, Laravel 11.28 or higher and Livewire 4, according to the upgrade guide.
What is Laravel Nova?
Nova is an administration panel made by the Laravel team. It gives a full create, read, update and delete interface for Eloquent models, with actions that can run on queues, filters, lenses for specialized views, metrics, and custom tools written in Vue, as the Nova site describes.
It is a paid product: a single project license costs $99 once and renews at $79 per year, and the unlimited license costs $299 once and renews at $249 per year, each including a year of updates, per the Nova pricing. In production, Nova checks the license key and the registered production URL, and it installs from a private Composer repository, so your deployment pipeline needs the license credentials, as its installation guide notes.
How do they compare?
| Filament | Nova | Custom admin | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, MIT license | Paid per project, yearly renewal for updates | Build and maintenance time |
| Front end | Livewire, Alpine.js, Tailwind CSS | Vue and Inertia | Your choice |
| Access control | Laravel policies plus a panel access check | Laravel policies plus a gate | Whatever you build |
| Best fit | Internal tools, portals, many custom screens | Classic admin over existing models | Back office that is part of the product |
How do you control who can use the admin?
Both tools lean on Laravel's own gates and policies, which group authorization rules around each model, as described in the Laravel authorization docs. In Filament, every user can open the panel locally, but in production your User model must implement a canAccessPanel check, and Filament uses your model policies for each record, per its users documentation. Nova uses a viewNova gate for non-local environments.
Write the rules once, in policies, so the admin, the API and the app all agree. For staff sign-in, two-factor login matters more in an admin than anywhere else; our guide to two-factor login and single sign-on covers the options.
How do you keep a record of admin changes?
Decide where the audit trail comes from before launch. Nova can show an action log on a resource's detail page when the model uses its Actionable trait, according to its actions documentation. With Filament or a custom admin, plan the audit log as part of the build, either with a package or with your own table recording the user, the record, the change and the time.
When is a custom admin worth building?
- The back office is used by customers or partners and is part of what they pay for.
- Staff follow multi-step processes, such as approvals or scheduling boards, that do not fit a list and a form.
- The admin has to work well on phones in the field.
- The design must match the product exactly.
If it is really a portal for clients, our guide to client portal features helps scope it, and our custom software development team can build it alongside the panel.
How do you decide in practice?
Three questions settle most projects:
- Who uses it? If only your staff do, a panel builder fits; if customers or partners use it, plan a custom front end at least for their part.
- Which front end does your team know? Filament suits teams comfortable with Livewire and Blade; Nova's custom tools are written in Vue.
- How much will it change? A back office that grows every month benefits from a free, extensible tool with clean policies underneath.
What about plugins and upgrades?
The admin has to move forward with Laravel. Filament's upgrade guide offers an automated upgrade script and warns that some plugins may not be available for a new major version straight away, so check each plugin's support before you depend on it, as its upgrade guide notes. With Nova, keep the update renewal active if you want new releases. Our plan for upgrading an old Laravel app covers the rest of the stack.
Frequently asked questions
Is Filament free for commercial projects?
Yes. Filament is open source under the MIT license, which allows commercial use. Check the license of each community plugin you add as well. The cost to plan for is development time: building resources, forms, permissions and reports for your own data still takes work.
Do we need a separate Nova license for staging?
Nova checks the license key and production URL in production, and its docs say it does not check the key on localhost, local domains such as .test, or common staging subdomains. One license covers one project on the single plan, and the unlimited plan covers any number of projects.
Can the admin panel also be our customer portal?
Filament can run several panels in one app, such as an internal admin and a customer portal, each with its own access rules. That works well for simple portals. If the portal is a main part of what customers pay for, a custom front end often gives a better experience and more design freedom.
Can we switch from Nova to Filament later, or the other way?
Yes, because both sit on top of your Laravel models and policies rather than storing data of their own. The screens, actions and custom tools have to be rebuilt, though. Keeping business rules in models, policies and services, not inside admin classes, makes a later switch much cheaper.
How long does an admin panel take to build?
It depends on the number of models, the permissions and the reports, not on the tool alone. A panel builder gives you lists, forms, filters and authentication quickly, so most of the time goes into your own workflows. Write down the tasks staff do every day before asking for an estimate.
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