Actionable vs Laravel Actions: Why Choose Actionable?

Both packages solve the same fundamental problem: organizing Laravel business logic into clean, reusable actions. However, Actionable takes a simpler, more developer-friendly approach.

🎯 Core Philosophy

Laravel Actions requires you to define multiple asX() methods and think about how your action will run:

class SendEmail extends Action
{
    use AsAction;
    
    public function asController() { /* controller logic */ }
    public function asJob() { /* job logic */ }
    public function asListener() { /* listener logic */ }
    public function handle() { /* actual logic */ }
}

Actionable focuses on what your action does with simple traits:

class SendEmail
{
    use IsRunnable, IsDispatchable;
    
    public function handle() { /* your logic here */ }
}

✅ Key Advantages of Actionable

🚀 Simpler API

• Actionable: SendEmail::run($data) or SendEmail::dispatch($data)
• Laravel Actions: SendEmail::run($data) or SendEmail::dispatch($data) but requires a separate asX() method for each context.

🎨 Powerful DTOs with Array Conversion

Actionable includes robust DTO support out of the box:

class OrderData
{
    use ArrayConvertible;
    
    public function __construct(
        #[FieldName('customer_email')]
        public string $customerEmail,
        
        #[DateFormat('Y-m-d')]
        public DateTime $orderDate
    ) {}
}

$orderData = OrderData::fromArray($request->validated());
return response()->json($orderData->toArray());

Laravel Actions doesn't provide DTO functionality - you'd need additional packages.

🛠️ Better Developer Experience

• Smart IDE completion with dedicated artisan commands
• Attribute-based field mapping for API responses
• Zero configuration - works immediately after installation
• Clean, focused traits instead of multiple method definitions

📦 All-in-One Solution

Actionable provides:

• ✅ Runnable actions
• ✅ Dispatchable actions
• ✅ Powerful DTOs with array conversion
• ✅ Smart attribute system
• ✅ IDE helper generation

Laravel Actions provides:

• ✅ Multi-context execution (controller/job/listener/command)
• ❌ No DTO support
• ❌ No array conversion utilities
• ❌ More complex setup for each use case

🎯 Focused Approach

While Laravel Actions tries to be everything (controller, job, listener, command), Actionable focuses on the two most common use cases:

• Synchronous execution (::run())
• Asynchronous execution (::dispatch())

This results in cleaner, more maintainable code without the overhead of unused functionality.

🏁 The Bottom Line

Choose Actionable if you want:

• ✅ Simpler, cleaner syntax
• ✅ Built-in DTO support with array conversion
• ✅ Better developer experience
• ✅ Zero configuration setup
• ✅ Focus on the most common action patterns

Choose Laravel Actions if you need:

• ✅ Actions as Artisan commands
• ✅ Actions as event listeners with complex authorization/validation flows
• ✅ Multiple execution contexts in a single class

Actionable makes the common case simple, while Laravel Actions makes the complex case possible.