laravel-permission
A Laravel package for assigning roles and permissions to users, stored in your database.
- Stars
- 13k
- Forks
- 1.8k
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- PHP
- Last update
- 15 days ago
- Type
- Library
What it is
This is a PHP package for the Laravel web framework that lets an app track which users can do what. You give users permissions (such as 'edit articles') directly or through roles (such as 'writer'), and the data is stored in your database. Once set up, Laravel's standard can() check works with these permissions.
- Give a user a permission directly with $user->givePermissionTo('edit articles')
- Group permissions into a role and assign that role to users with $user->assignRole('writer')
- Check access in your app with Laravel's built-in $user->can('edit articles')
Great for
- Laravel developers who need role-based access control in an app
- Teams building admin panels where different users need different access
- Projects that want to store roles and permissions in the database
Not ideal for
- Non-Laravel PHP projects, since it is built specifically for Laravel
- Apps needing per-team or multi-tenant roles out of the box, because the README points to other packages such as laratrust for team support
- Non-developers, since setup and use require writing code
How to get it
- 1
Install with a package manager
You'll need: PHP and Composer · A Laravel application
Install via Composer
git clone https://github.com/spatie/laravel-permission - 2
Run it
- Install the package into a Laravel project following the documentation at spatie.be/docs/laravel-permission
- Run the database migrations that the package provides
- Assign a permission or role to a user using givePermissionTo or assignRole
- Check access with $user->can('permission name')
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Read the full documentation for upgrade guidance and configuration options
- Use roles to group permissions so you update access in one place
- Use Laravel's can() check so permissions work with policies and gates you already use
Downloads
Strengths
- Uses Laravel's standard gate system, so permission checks look familiar to Laravel developers
- Permissions can be assigned directly to users or inherited through roles
- Widely used, MIT licensed, and actively maintained by Spatie according to the repository
Trade-offs
- Only useful inside Laravel; it does not run as a standalone tool
- Requires writing code and database setup, so it is not a no-code solution
- The README provided is truncated and short on setup detail; the full documentation is on an external site
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| laravel-permission (this) | 13k | Library | intermediate | 15 days ago | Laravel developers who need role-based access control in an app |
| jwt-auth | 11.5k | Library | intermediate | 13 days ago | Laravel developers building token-based APIs |
| Laravel-Excel | 12.7k | Library | intermediate | 14 days ago | Laravel developers who need to export database query results to Excel or CSV |
| framework | 35k | Framework | intermediate | 4 days ago | PHP developers building web applications or APIs |
| bagisto | 28.3k | App | intermediate | 4 days ago | Developers building a custom online store on Laravel |
| laravel-crm | 24.1k | App | intermediate | 4 days ago | Small and mid-sized businesses that want a self-hosted CRM |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.