In 2017, a small team at Webkul set out to build an ecommerce platform the way they believed it should be built: flexible, developer-friendly, and on Laravel.
Seven years later, Bagisto has:
- 26,000+ GitHub stars
- 200,000+ users worldwide
- $2M in revenue, fully bootstrapped, with no external funding
- A team that grew from two people to more than 60
- A global partner ecosystem of 80+ partners
- A platform that can be easily deployed on Laravel Cloud
The Platform They Wanted to Build
Webkul had spent years building extensions and plugins for major ecommerce platforms. They knew these ecosystems inside and out, and that familiarity made the gaps clear. The platforms were rigid, and customization was slow. Developer experience was, unfortunately, an afterthought.
Laravel had been gaining momentum as the PHP framework that got things right. For Devansh Bawari, Associate Vice President of Technology at Webkul, the appeal was immediate and practical.
"I began using Laravel early in my career while looking for better alternatives to traditional PHP development. What stood out immediately was Laravel's elegant syntax, strong ecosystem, and developer-friendly features like Eloquent ORM, Blade templating, and its modular architecture. It allowed me to focus more on solving business problems rather than writing repetitive boilerplate code, which is why I've continued using it ever since."
That philosophy eventually shaped every decision in Bagisto's architecture.
The Turning Point
Development began in 2017, and after months of building, the team released Bagisto to the public. The early days were about iteration: adding features, fixing issues, and refining the experience.
Then Laravel News featured Bagisto, and everything changed.
Developers and businesses from around the world discovered the platform. The community grew rapidly, and adoption accelerated. The team’s answer to a developer experience problem was suddenly becoming something much larger.
Seven Years of Growth
Today, Bagisto ranks among the fastest-growing open-source ecommerce platforms in the world. The GitHub community has crossed 26,000 stars, with the platform supporting more than 200,000 users worldwide, backed by a global partner ecosystem of over 80 partners.
The team
The business has generated $2 million in revenue, entirely bootstrapped. The team has grown from two people to more than 60. They're also a successful Laravel Partner, sharing their Laravel expertise with several businesses.
Devansh took the main stage at Laracon India 2026 in Ahmedabad with a talk titled Scaling Laravel for Millions of Products: Lessons from Bagisto.
But for him, presenting was only part of the value. "The experience was incredibly rewarding—not just presenting, but also engaging with the vibrant Laravel community. Interacting with developers, exchanging ideas, and discussing architecture and scalability gave me fresh perspectives."
Community as Infrastructure
For Devansh, contributing to the community is not a side activity. He actively mentors developers inside and outside of Webkul, runs knowledge-sharing sessions, reviews code, and supports open-source growth wherever he can.
"I strongly believe in giving back to the community by helping others grow, just as I learned from it during my early career."
His advice for other Laravel developers reflects the same orientation toward fundamentals: "Focus on fundamentals and don't rely solely on framework abstractions. Strengthen core PHP concepts. Understand database design and system architecture. Explore Laravel's ecosystem deeply. Contribute to open source when possible. Most importantly, build real-world projects. Practical experience will always teach you more than theory."
Built on Laravel, Ready for Laravel Cloud
Because Bagisto is a pure Laravel application, it runs anywhere Laravel does, including Laravel Cloud. The platform can be deployed on Laravel Cloud with straightforward configuration: connect a GitHub repository, provision a database cluster, set environment variables, and the store is live.
The answer to the question “what would a developer-first ecommerce platform look like on Laravel?” became a global platform with 200,000 users, 100+ partners, and $2 million in revenue. Webkul built a business that remains bootstrapped, open-source, and Laravel-based.
You can view the Bagisto project on GitHub.