Hey everyone,
I've been working on a side project called NativeBlade and wanted to share it with the community.
The idea is simple: take your Laravel + Livewire app and run it as a native desktop or mobile application. No server needed. No Electron. No JavaScript frameworks. Just PHP and Blade.
How it works
Your entire Laravel application gets bundled and runs inside a PHP WebAssembly runtime, wrapped in a https://v2.tauri.app shell. The architecture looks like this:
PHP 8.3 runs in the browser via WebAssembly
Blade templates and Livewire components work as-is
SQLite database persists to IndexedDB (survives app restarts)
Native shell components (header, bottom nav, drawer) render outside the WebView — no flicker during navigation
Native OS features (dialogs, notifications, system tray) work through a bridge
The whole thing started as a weekend experiment: "what if I could just composer require something and turn my Laravel app into a desktop app?"
What it can do
Desktop: Windows, macOS, Linux with native menus and system tray
Mobile: Android & iOS with status bar, safe area, swipe back
External HTTP requests: Http::get() works transparently through a JS bridge — PHP signals what it needs, JavaScript makes the real fetch, PHP re-executes with the cached
response. You can even use NativeBlade::pool() to run multiple requests in parallel via Promise.all()
1,512 built-in icons from https://phosphoricons.com/ — works in both shell components and Blade templates
Hot reload during development via a Vite plugin that watches PHP/Blade files
Offline-first — everything runs client-side, no internet required after install
That's it. Your Laravel app is now a desktop application.
What doesn't work
I want to be upfront about the limitations. Since PHP runs in WebAssembly, there's no real server:
No queues/jobs — no background worker process
No mail — no SMTP from WASM
No MySQL/Postgres — SQLite only
No sessions — uses a built-in state management instead
No cron/scheduling
Http::get() works but through a bridge (not native PHP networking)
It's not meant to replace server-side Laravel. It's for apps that run locally and don't need a backend, think tools, dashboards, utilities, offline apps.
Why I'm sharing this
This started as a learning project and I'd love to get feedback from the PHP community. The codebase touches a lot of interesting areas:
PHP WebAssembly internals
Tauri 2 (Rust-based alternative to Electron)
Livewire's lifecycle inside a non-standard runtime
Bridging sync PHP with async JavaScript
If any of this sounds interesting to you — whether you want to contribute, experiment, or just tell me what I'm doing wrong — I'd appreciate it.
GitHub: https://github.com/NativeBlade/NativeBlade
Happy to answer any questions!
Top comments (3)
Skipping Electron entirely is a bold move. Curious how it handles OS-level APIs.
Tauri 2 actually gives us more OS-level access than Electron does out of the box. Our bridge layer maps PHP calls to native plugins:
All through Livewire directives: wire:nb-bridge="camera", wire:nb-bridge="biometric", etc. No JavaScript needed from the developer.
The real advantage over Electron: Tauri plugins are Rust-native, not JS wrappers. Things like biometric auth, haptics, and NFC are official Tauri plugins that talk directly to the OS. Electron needs third-party Node modules for most of these, and some (haptics, NFC) simply don't exist.
And the binary? ~15MB vs Electron's ~150MB. No bundled Chromium — Tauri uses the OS webview.
15MB vs 150MB is a massive win. Rust-native plugins make sense.