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Which official starter kits does Laravel 13 offer, and what does each one give a brand-new application?

level: juniorimportance: must knowfreq 52%

answer

  1. three Inertia kits, one Livewire kit
  2. TypeScript plus a shadcn flavour
  3. Flux UI on the Livewire side
  4. Fortify behind every auth screen
  5. laravel new or --react/--vue/--svelte/--livewire

basics

~20 s

Laravel 13 offers React, Vue and Svelte kits built on Inertia with TypeScript, Tailwind and a shadcn component library, and a Livewire kit with Flux UI. Each creates a full app with Fortify-backed login, registration, password reset, 2FA and settings pages.

solid answer

~40 s

There are four official kits. The **React**, **Vue** and **Svelte** kits use Inertia 3, so Laravel keeps routing and controllers while pages are TypeScript components: React 19 with shadcn/ui, Vue's Composition API with shadcn-vue, Svelte 5 with shadcn-svelte, all on Tailwind, plus Wayfinder for typed route helpers. The **Livewire** kit uses Livewire 4 with Flux UI components and Blade, for teams that want to stay in PHP. Every kit ships the same product: login, registration, password reset, email verification, two-factor authentication and passkeys through Laravel Fortify, plus a dashboard and profile/security settings pages. You pick one in the `laravel new` prompt or with `--react`, `--vue`, `--svelte` or `--livewire`; the installer runs `composer create-project` on the kit's repository, so the result is a complete application.

code

bash · 6 lines
bash
# interactive: pick React, Vue, Svelte or Livewire at the prompt
laravel new hr-portal

# non-interactive: choose the kit with a flag
laravel new hr-portal --livewire
laravel new hr-portal --react

go deeper

for a junior

Name the four kits, what each is built on, and that all of them give you working login, registration and settings pages.

for a middle

Explain the Inertia versus Livewire split, Fortify behind the auth screens, Wayfinder in the Inertia kits and the install:features pruning step.

for a senior

Pick a kit from team skills and product needs, and point out what you inherit: Fortify's routes, a component library, a test suite.

for a principal

Treat the kit as a one-time scaffold that sets the front-end stack for years, so the choice is really a hiring and skills decision.

## What a starter kit is A Laravel **starter kit** is a complete Laravel application, published as a Composer project, that already contains a front end and working **authentication screens**. You do not add it to an existing app; you **create** a new app from it. The Laravel installer does this for you: `laravel new my-app` asks which kit you want, then runs `composer create-project laravel/react-starter-kit my-app` (or the Vue, Svelte or Livewire equivalent) instead of creating the plain `laravel/laravel` skeleton. Kits are optional — the docs are explicit that a fresh skeleton is equally valid — but they are the fastest way to a logged-in dashboard. ## The four kits | Kit | Front-end model | UI stack | Component library | |---|---|---|---| | React | Inertia 3 pages | React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind 4 | shadcn/ui (Radix primitives) | | Vue | Inertia 3 pages | Vue Composition API, TypeScript, Tailwind | shadcn-vue (Reka UI) | | Svelte | Inertia 3 pages | Svelte 5, TypeScript, Tailwind | shadcn-svelte | | Livewire | Livewire 4 components in Blade | PHP and Blade, Tailwind | Flux UI | **Inertia kits** keep Laravel's routes and controllers: a controller returns `Inertia::render('dashboard')` and the page is a TypeScript component under `resources/js/pages`. They also include **Wayfinder**, which generates typed functions for your Laravel routes and controller actions so the front end calls them without hard-coded URLs. The **Livewire kit** keeps everything in Blade and PHP. Its pages live under `resources/views/pages` as Livewire components, its layouts under `resources/views/layouts`, and it uses **Flux UI** for buttons, inputs, navigation and the sidebar. It does not use Volt. ## What every kit includes - **Authentication through Laravel Fortify**: login, logout, registration, password reset, email verification, password confirmation, two-factor authentication and passkeys. Fortify supplies the routes and controllers; the kit supplies the screens and the `app/Actions/Fortify` classes such as `CreateNewUser`. - **A dashboard** behind the `auth` middleware. - **Settings pages** for profile, security (password and two-factor) and appearance, in every kit. - **Two app layouts** — sidebar (the default) and header — and three auth-page layouts: simple, card and split. - **Tooling**: Vite with Tailwind, PHPUnit feature tests for the auth and settings flows (`tests/Feature/Auth`, `tests/Feature/Settings`), Pint, and Composer scripts such as `composer run dev`. - **Wiring you can read**: a `FortifyServiceProvider` in `app/Providers` tells Fortify which page to render for each screen — in the React kit, `Fortify::loginView()` returns `Inertia::render('auth/login')` — so following a request from route to screen never leaves your codebase. ## After creation ```bash cd my-app npm install && npm run build composer run dev ``` The installer usually handles the npm steps for you. During creation the kits also run a post-create hook, `php artisan install:features`, which asks which authentication features to keep — email verification, registration, two-factor, passkeys, password confirmation — and removes the code for the ones you drop. ## Choosing between them 1. **The team writes React, Vue or Svelte already** → the matching Inertia kit. 2. **The team is PHP-first and wants reactive UI without a JavaScript framework** → the Livewire kit. 3. **SSO or social login is a requirement** → the WorkOS AuthKit variant of whichever kit fits. 4. **No auth at all** → the plain skeleton, or a kit created with `--no-authentication`. ## Where the code lives | Concern | Inertia kits | Livewire kit | |---|---|---| | Pages | `resources/js/pages/*.tsx` (or `.vue` / `.svelte`) | `resources/views/pages` | | Layouts | `resources/js/layouts` | `resources/views/layouts` | | UI primitives | `resources/js/components/ui` | Flux components, customisable under `resources/views/flux` | | Auth screens | `resources/js/pages/auth` | `resources/views/pages/auth` | ## What interviewers check They want to hear that the kits are **Inertia-based SPAs or Livewire apps**, that **Fortify** does the authentication, and that the result is an **ordinary app you then own**. Describing Breeze or Jetstream as the current kits dates the answer: both READMEs say they are for Laravel 11.x and earlier.

  • What is Wayfinder doing in the React, Vue and Svelte kits?
    Wayfinder generates TypeScript functions for your Laravel routes and controller actions, so Inertia pages import a typed route instead of writing a URL string. Because those definitions are generated at build time, deleting a route that a page still imports makes the front-end build fail, which surfaces broken links early.
  • Can you add another shadcn component to the React kit after installation?
    Yes. The kit's UI components are source files in `resources/js/components/ui`, not a locked library, so you run `npx shadcn@latest add switch` and the component is written into that folder for you to import and edit.
  • Does the Livewire kit use Volt?
    No. The Livewire kit is built on Livewire 4, Flux UI and Blade, with its pages as Livewire components under `resources/views/pages`; it does not depend on Volt. The installer's `--livewire-class-components` flag chooses a variant with separate class-based components instead.

saying these in an interview costs you the question

  • Breeze and Jetstream are the official kits for a new Laravel 13 app
  • The React kit is a separate SPA that talks to a Laravel API with tokens
  • The kits implement authentication with their own controllers instead of Fortify
  • The Livewire kit is built on Volt
  • A starter kit is a Composer package you add to an existing app