Building Mobile Applications with Laravel Filament PHP

Learn how to leverage Laravel Filament PHP to create powerful mobile applications with seamless integration.

The line between web and mobile development is blurring, and Laravel developers are at the forefront of this transformation. For years, building a mobile application required a completely different tech stack, a new language, and a separate development workflow. That paradigm is changing. With the combination of Laravel Filament and innovative tools like NativePHP, it is now possible to build full-featured, native mobile applications using the PHP and Laravel skills you already possess.

Filament, celebrated for its efficiency in creating beautiful and powerful admin panels, is no longer confined to the browser. It can now power the user interface of a native mobile application, running your entire Laravel backend directly on the device. This approach unlocks offline capabilities, deep native integrations, and a rapid development cycle that feels familiar to any Laravel developer.

This article will guide you through the process of using Laravel Filament to build mobile applications. We will explore the setup process with NativePHP, discuss the benefits of this modern workflow, and cover best practices for delivering a high-performance mobile experience.

What is Laravel Filament?

Filament is an open-source UI framework for Laravel designed to accelerate development. Built on the TALL stack (Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js, Laravel, and Livewire), it provides a collection of pre-built components that simplify the creation of complex user interfaces. Its core offerings include:

• Panel Builder: A comprehensive system for building admin panels, dashboards, and entire applications.
• Form Builder: A declarative way to create dynamic, Livewire-powered forms with over 25 field types.
• Table Builder: An elegant tool for crafting interactive datatables with searching, filtering, and sorting capabilities.

Filament’s power lies in its fluent, PHP-based API, which allows developers to build sophisticated interfaces with minimal effort. This efficiency, combined with its beautiful design, has made it a favorite in the Laravel community for web-based projects.

Taking Filament Mobile with NativePHP

The real innovation comes from combining Filament with NativePHP. NativePHP is a framework that enables you to build native desktop and mobile applications using PHP and Laravel. It bundles the PHP runtime with your application, allowing your Laravel code to execute directly on an iOS or Android device.

When you pair Filament with NativePHP, your entire application—from the backend logic to the Filament-powered UI—runs natively. This is not a web view pointing to a remote server; it is an offline-first application that carries its server in its pocket.

How Does It Work?

1. PHP on the Device: NativePHP compiles the PHP runtime and necessary extensions for mobile platforms. This includes complex dependencies like the intl extension, which Filament relies on for formatting dates, numbers, and currencies.
2. Native Shell: Your Laravel application runs inside a native shell (Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android).
3. Web View: The UI, rendered by Filament and Livewire, is displayed in a native web view component, which feels seamless to the user.
4. Native Bridge: NativePHP provides a bridge to access native device features like the camera, GPS, push notifications, and biometrics directly from your PHP code.

Getting Started: A Practical Example

Let's outline the steps to get a basic Filament application running as a mobile app. This assumes you have a working Laravel project and the necessary environment for mobile development (Xcode for iOS, Android Studio for Android).

Step 1: Install Filament

First, add Filament to your existing Laravel project. Follow the official installation guide to set up the panel builder.

composer require filament/filament:"^4.0" -W
php artisan filament:install --panels

Next, create a user and a simple Filament resource to manage. For instance, a Customer resource:

php artisan make:filament-resource Customer

At this point, you should have a functional Filament admin panel accessible in the browser.

Step 2: Integrate NativePHP

Now, add NativePHP to your project. This package will provide the commands and configuration needed for mobile builds.

composer require nativephp/electron
php artisan native:install

Step 3: Configure for Mobile

NativePHP uses a nativephp.php configuration file. Here, you can define your application's details. The core of the mobile setup involves using NativePHP's CLI to add mobile platforms and manage the build process.

You will typically use commands provided by NativePHP to initialize the mobile build targets:

php artisan native:add-platform ios
php artisan native:add-platform android

These commands set up the necessary boilerplate and configuration files for each mobile platform.

Step 4: Build and Run the Mobile App

With the setup complete, you can now build and run your application on a simulator or a physical device.

# To run on the iOS simulator
php artisan native:serve ios

# To run on an Android emulator
php artisan native:serve android

This command compiles your Laravel application, including Filament, into a native package and deploys it. You will see your Filament interface running inside a native application window, fully functional and ready for interaction.

Key Benefits of Using Filament for Mobile Apps

This approach offers compelling advantages over traditional mobile development workflows.

1. Offline-First Capability: Because the entire Laravel application and an SQLite database run on the device, your app works perfectly without an internet connection. This is a game-changer for field service applications, inventory management tools, and any app used in environments with unreliable connectivity.
2. Unified Codebase: Maintain a single PHP codebase for your web platform and mobile app. This reduces development time, simplifies maintenance, and ensures consistency across platforms.
3. Rapid Prototyping and Development: Leverage Filament’s pre-built components to create sophisticated UIs in a fraction of the time it would take with native UI toolkits. The development cycle is incredibly fast, especially with features like hot reloading.
4. Access to the Laravel Ecosystem: Use the vast ecosystem of Laravel packages you already know and trust. Whether it's for authentication, data processing, or business logic, your favorite tools are available.
5. Seamless Native Integrations: Need to access the device's camera to scan a barcode or use GPS to tag a location? NativePHP’s API provides a straightforward bridge to call native device functions directly from your PHP code.

Best Practices for Mobile Filament Apps

Building for mobile requires a shift in mindset. While you are using familiar tools, the target environment is different.

• Optimize for Performance: Mobile devices have limited resources compared to a web server. Be mindful of complex queries and heavy computations. Use caching strategies where appropriate and ensure your code is efficient.
• Embrace SQLite: For on-device storage, SQLite is the standard. Design your database interactions with its constraints in mind. It is a powerful file-based database perfect for mobile use cases.
• Manage Application Size: Every extension and dependency you add increases the final app size. For example, including the intl extension adds around 30MB. While necessary for Filament, be deliberate about which packages you include to keep your application lean.
• Design for a Mobile UX: Filament's responsive design works well on mobile, but you should still test your UI on various screen sizes. Ensure touch targets are large enough and workflows are simple and intuitive for a mobile user.

Conclusion

The combination of Laravel, Filament, and NativePHP represents a monumental shift in mobile application development. It empowers PHP and Laravel developers to enter a new domain without abandoning the tools and expertise they have spent years mastering. The ability to build offline-first, native mobile applications from a single, unified codebase is no longer a dream—it is a practical and efficient reality.

By leveraging Filament's powerful UI components and NativePHP's bridge to native functionality, you can accelerate project delivery and build powerful mobile solutions. This is an opportunity to expand your skillset and deliver more value with the reliable and elegant stack you already know and love.