Comparison with Other Tools

A detailed comparison between Laravel Spectrum and other API documentation generation tools for Laravel.

📊 Feature Comparison Table

Feature	Laravel Spectrum	Swagger-PHP	L5-Swagger	Scribe
Zero Annotations	✅	❌	❌	⚠️ Partial
Automatic Validation Detection	✅	❌	❌	✅
API Resources Support	✅	❌	❌	✅
Fractal Support	✅	❌	❌	❌
File Upload Detection	✅	Manual	Manual	✅
Query Parameter Detection	✅	❌	❌	⚠️ Limited
Enum Support	✅	Manual	Manual	❌
Conditional Validation	✅	❌	❌	❌
Live Reload	✅	❌	❌	❌
Smart Caching	✅	❌	❌	❌
Pagination Detection	✅	❌	❌	✅
Postman Export	✅	❌	❌	✅
Insomnia Export	✅	❌	❌	❌
Mock Server	✅	❌	❌	❌
Parallel Processing	✅	❌	❌	❌
Incremental Generation	✅	❌	❌	❌
Dynamic Example Data	✅	❌	❌	⚠️ Basic
Setup Time	< 1 min	Hours	Hours	Minutes

🎯 Laravel Spectrum

Pros

• ✅ Fully Automatic: Analyzes code and generates documentation automatically
• ✅ Zero Configuration: Ready to use with default settings
• ✅ High Performance: Parallel processing and smart caching
• ✅ Real-time: Detects file changes and updates automatically
• ✅ Comprehensive: Supports FormRequest, API Resources, Fractal, and more
• ✅ Mock Server: Automatically generates mock API from documentation

Cons

• ❌ No fine control through custom annotations
• ❌ Limited manual definition of complex custom responses

Best Use Cases

• Documenting existing Laravel projects
• Rapid development and prototyping
• Consistent documentation management for team development
• Providing mock APIs for frontend developers

📝 Swagger-PHP

Pros

• ✅ Fully compliant with industry-standard Swagger/OpenAPI specifications
• ✅ Very detailed customization possible
• ✅ Large community and support

Cons

• ❌ Requires extensive annotations
• ❌ Steep learning curve
• ❌ Difficult to keep code and documentation in sync
• ❌ Time-consuming initial setup

Best Use Cases

• Large enterprise projects requiring detailed control
• Teams already familiar with Swagger

Example

/**
 * @OA\Post(
 *     path="/api/users",
 *     summary="Create user",
 *     @OA\RequestBody(
 *         @OA\JsonContent(
 *             required={"name","email"},
 *             @OA\Property(property="name", type="string"),
 *             @OA\Property(property="email", type="string", format="email")
 *         )
 *     ),
 *     @OA\Response(response=201, description="User created")
 * )
 */

🔧 L5-Swagger

Pros

• ✅ Optimized specifically for Laravel
• ✅ Easy Swagger-UI integration
• ✅ Laravel wrapper for Swagger-PHP

Cons

• ❌ Requires annotations like Swagger-PHP
• ❌ No automatic detection features
• ❌ Requires manual updates

Best Use Cases

• When wanting to use Swagger-PHP more easily with Laravel
• When existing Swagger documentation exists

📚 Scribe

Pros

• ✅ No annotations required (partially)
• ✅ Beautiful documentation theme
• ✅ Postman collection generation
• ✅ Try it out feature

Cons

• ❌ Cannot fully analyze API Resources
• ❌ No Fractal support
• ❌ No conditional validation support
• ❌ No real-time updates
• ❌ No mock server functionality

Best Use Cases

• Documenting simple APIs
• When static documentation is sufficient

🚀 Migration Guide

Migrating from Swagger-PHP

1. No need to remove annotations

   • Laravel Spectrum ignores annotations, allowing gradual migration

2. Configuration migration

   // config/spectrum.php
   'title' => config('l5-swagger.documentations.default.info.title'),
   'version' => config('l5-swagger.documentations.default.info.version'),

3. Generate and test

   php artisan spectrum:generate

Migrating from Scribe

1. Configuration migration

   // Migrate Scribe configuration to Spectrum
   'title' => config('scribe.title'),
   'description' => config('scribe.description'),

2. Custom example migration

   // config/spectrum.php
   'example_generation' => [
       'custom_generators' => [
           // Migrate Scribe custom examples here
       ],
   ],

💰 Cost Comparison

Development Time Savings

Tool	Initial Setup	Documenting 100 Endpoints	Maintenance (Monthly)
Laravel Spectrum	5 min	0 min (automatic)	0 min (automatic)
Swagger-PHP	2-4 hours	20-40 hours	2-4 hours
L5-Swagger	1-2 hours	20-40 hours	2-4 hours
Scribe	30 min	5-10 hours	1-2 hours

ROI (Return on Investment)

Time savings for a 100-endpoint API project:

• First year: Approximately 30-50 hours saved
• Ongoing: 2-4 hours saved per month
• At $50/hour developer rate: $3,000-5,000 saved annually

🎯 Selection Guide

Choose Laravel Spectrum When

• ✅ Need documentation quickly
• ✅ Want to document existing code
• ✅ Want to minimize maintenance effort
• ✅ Need real-time documentation updates
• ✅ Need a mock API server
• ✅ Want entire team to access latest documentation

Consider Other Tools When

• ❌ Need very detailed customization (Swagger-PHP)
• ❌ Already have extensive Swagger annotations (L5-Swagger)
• ❌ Static documentation is sufficient (Scribe)

📚 Related Documentation

• Installation and Configuration - Getting started with Laravel Spectrum
• Migration Guide - Detailed migration steps from other tools
• Features - All Laravel Spectrum features