A FIELD GUIDE TO LARAVEL · VOLUME II · THE ECOSYSTEM
ENTRY II.5 · MICRO-FRAMEWORK
Lumen
Laravel\Lumen · Package · first recorded 14 April 2015, v5.0.0 on Packagist
A separate, smaller framework built from Laravel's components for APIs and small services. Its work is done: Laravel now recommends the full framework for new projects, with Octane for the speed Lumen once offered.
Specification
Kind Framework, separate from Laravel; skeleton repo archived April 2024
Interface Routing, database, queueing and caching, per the README
Runs on PHP 8.2 or higher, with OpenSSL, PDO and Mbstring (Lumen 11)
Installed by composer create-project laravel/lumen (skeleton last tagged 10.0)
Voice artisan, Lumen's own smaller console
Scales by As any PHP-FPM app: more workers, more servers. Octane now covers its case
Range Cloud: not a listed framework; the PHP runtime takes other PHP apps
Forge, VPS: yes, as any PHP site; though new projects are pointed at Laravel itself
Vapor: no stated support; Laravel itself runs there instead
Neighbours
Laravel itself is the successor: the Lumen docs no longer support starting new projects with Lumen and recommend Laravel instead. Octane is where the speed went, keeping the app booted in memory between requests. An existing Lumen app runs on; new work begins in Laravel.
Octane II.25
Field marks
laravel/lumen-framework in composer
Laravel\Lumen\Application
$router->get() in routes/web.php
bootstrap/app.php does the wiring
Fig. II.5.1 · Laravel with less, exploded
Parts
1 Request. Arrives at public/index.php as in Laravel; the application is wired up in bootstrap/app.php.
2 Router. nikic/fast-route in place of Laravel's router; illuminate/routing is not among its dependencies.
3 Components, Laravel's own: the container, database, queues and cache, taken as Composer packages.
4 Not promised. Cashier, Passport and Scout are not promised to work; Lumen is a separate framework, not a mode of Laravel.
5 Successor. Laravel itself, with Octane holding the app in memory between requests. The README says so.
Hidden joinery
GitHub archived laravel/lumen on 9 April 2024; lumen-framework is not archived and has an untagged 12.x branch. The docs give the reason: PHP got faster and Octane exists, so the speed gap closed. Lumen is its own framework, so a package written for Laravel is not promised to work on it. The last docs want PHP 8.2.
Checked line by line against lumen.laravel.com/docs/11.x, GitHub and Packagist on 2026-10-08.
TITLE
Lumen · Laravel with less
SOURCES
lumen.laravel.com/docs/11.x · github.com/laravel/lumen · github.com/laravel/lumen-framework · github.com/laravel/lumen-docs · packagist.org/packages/laravel/lumen · packagist.org/packages/laravel/lumen-framework · laravel.com/cloud/docs/runtimes · laravel.com/forge/docs/introduction · laravel.com/docs/13.x/octane
STATUS
Verified · 2026-10-08
SHEET
II.5 of 48
REV
A · 2026-10-08
DRAWN
BS
FINISH
All faces, including the back