Tabletop vs Laravel Nova

What runs in the browser

Both are single-page clients over Inertia. Moving between pages is an XHR visit that returns the next page's props as JSON rather than a full HTML page. The difference shows inside a form. In Nova, a dependent field is a PHP closure that receives the form data, so server code reconfigures it: shows or hides it, makes it read-only, or changes its rules. Nova's docs do not describe how or when the closure is re-run. Some field types, including File, Image, Trix and Code, cannot drive dependent fields at all. In Tabletop, form state is React state in the browser. hiddenIf and disabledIf conditions are evaluated there, with no request. The trade is that they are declarative conditions, not arbitrary PHP. When UI has to be computed on the server, you opt in with a liveRegion, which makes one round-trip each time a declared dependency changes.

Outside forms the two work much the same. Tabletop fetches table data, charts, async selects and uploads from plain JSON endpoints, and Nova's custom components call Nova.request(). In Tabletop, validation runs in PHP on submit; the client-side check is UX only. Neither project publishes a benchmark. What differs is where the logic runs, and Tabletop ships a large client bundle to run it in the browser.

Where the escape hatch lands

Both tools keep the screen definition in PHP. The real difference shows when the built-in fields run out. In Nova, a custom field is three Vue components, and a tool is a single-file Vue component. Each one is scaffolded as its own Composer package in nova-components and built with Laravel Mix. In Tabletop, a custom field is a React 19 component registered with defineFieldClient, plus a PHP Field class registered with S::register(). It lives in your own bundle and needs no schema entry and no edit to the core. Widgets are registered React blocks that you place from PHP by name, and a block inside a form can read the form's live state.

So the question is which frontend your team wants to maintain its custom admin code in: Vue packages on Mix, or React components beside the rest of your product.

Screens and the shell

Nova's pages follow the resource: index, detail, create and update, and lenses. Dashboards are made of cards and metrics. A detail page shows a table for each to-many relationship (HasMany, BelongsToMany, MorphToMany), each collapsible, and cards sit at the top of dashboard, index and detail pages. Any other page is a custom tool whose layout you write in Vue. Tabletop has no resource shape. A page's view() is one tree of layout primitives (stack, grid, section, tabs and others) holding forms, tables, stats and charts. One page can hold any number of fully featured tables and several named forms, each with its own submit endpoint.

The shell splits the same way. Nova's docs describe its interface as managed by Nova, with small branding customisations. You can replace the main menu, add items to the user menu (its logout link cannot be removed), set the footer text and turn on breadcrumbs. The docs have no API for replacing the layout or the top bar. In Tabletop, a Chrome class written in PHP defines the header, sidebar and footer, and you either add to the stock areas or replace any one of them. You choose from three navigation layouts, can give a page the chrome-less layout, and can fall back to React slots for any shell area.

Multilingual content

Both translate their own interface. Nova uses Laravel's localisation. nova:install publishes its language files, nova:translate starts a new locale, and you wrap resource, field and action labels in __() yourself. RTL layout is built in. Tabletop sets UI locales per panel and adds a switcher. It ships English and Ukrainian, and it does not document RTL.

The difference is in content. Nova has no translatable field, and its localisation docs cover only UI strings. To edit the same field per locale you need a third-party package, and Nova's docs name none. In Tabletop the feature is in core. ->translatable() on a field stores one value per locale. The form gets a locale tab bar that counts errors per tab, and rulesForLocale() validates each locale on its own. Content locales are configured once, separately from UI locales, and table columns read the active locale. The docs do not say which field kinds support it, so test uploads and relation fields before you rely on it.

Where Nova is stronger

Nova is the official option, and for many teams that settles it. It comes from the Laravel team and has shipped since 2018. A licence buys a year of updates, and the unlimited tier adds email support.

• First-party: designed and built by the Laravel team.
• Maturity: 1.0 in August 2018, Nova 4 in 2022, Nova 5 in December 2024, and a long history of regular releases.
• Built-in features: CRUD for every Eloquent relationship, queued actions, filters, lenses, metrics, Scout search, notifications, conditional fields and user impersonation.
• Auth out of the box: login is built on Laravel Fortify, with optional two-factor auth, email verification and password confirmation. Tabletop ships no auth backend, so you bring your own controllers.
• Authorization: model policies are checked automatically, and each field can be hidden per user with canSee or canSeeWhen.
• A wider version range: Laravel 10 to 13 on PHP 8.1+. Tabletop needs PHP 8.4.
• An older ecosystem: third parties publish and sell tools, cards and fields as Composer packages, and have been able to for much longer. Tabletop's ecosystem is one first-party field so far.
• RTL: a right-to-left layout is built in (enableRTL). Tabletop does not document RTL.
• Support and evaluation: paid email support on the unlimited tier, and an official demo installation to explore.

What Nova costs you

For a single project the price is low: $99 once, with an optional $79 a year to keep getting updates. Unlimited projects costs $299, with an optional $249 renewal. If you stop renewing, you keep the version you have. There is no free trial, only a limited 15-day refund policy.

• The licence forbids publishing Nova's source, so an app that includes Nova cannot live in a public repository.
• Nova installs from a private Composer repository, and production checks a licence key against a registered URL.
• Each client needs their own licence. An unlimited licence does not cover client projects.
• Built-in theming is config-level: the brand logo, primary colours and light/dark mode. Deeper changes mean CSS or custom asset packages.
• Majors can break extensions. Nova 5 moved to Inertia 2, so packages that imported Inertia 1 modules directly needed updates from their maintainers. Tabletop is worse on this until 1.0 (see below).

What Tabletop does not have yet

It is a 0.5 in public beta. Only the latest release is supported, and any minor can change the API, so pin the minor version and read the changelog before you upgrade. The package lists its own gaps: no auth backend, no CSV export or import, no cross-model record search, and no multi-tenancy.

Setup takes more than a composer require. The admin runs on its own Inertia entry, so you add it to your Vite config, and the host must compile Tailwind v4.

The ecosystem is where Tabletop is furthest behind. Extensions work like Nova's: a Composer package builds on registerBlock, defineFieldClient and S::register() without touching core, and nothing lists these packages. So far there is one first-party extension, tbtop/spatie-media-library. It is an image-picker field that installs as a Composer package plus an npm client, and it needs both. If you expect to install a field rather than write one, Nova is the safer bet.

Choose Nova if…

• You want the admin maintained by the Laravel team, with paid email support available.
• Your team already works in Vue.
• You need login, 2FA and impersonation without writing controllers.
• You are on Laravel 10, or on PHP older than 8.4.
• A 0.x dependency is not acceptable for the project.
• The licence cost and the ban on publishing source are fine for your project.
• You would rather install existing third-party packages than write the fields yourself.
• You need right-to-left layout out of the box.

Choose Tabletop if…

• Your product already runs on React, and your custom fields and widgets should be React components your team can maintain.
• You need MIT, for an open-source app or for client work without a licence per client.
• You edit content in several languages and want translatable fields in core, not in a third-party package.
• Your screens combine several forms and tables on one page, or you need to rework the header, sidebar and footer from PHP.
• You need several panels with separate guards, prefixes and chrome, sharing pages between them.
• You want to theme the admin with shadcn CSS tokens in your own CSS.
• You value a PHP-to-React contract checked by a JSON Schema on both sides, and an API reference generated from the source.
• You are on PHP 8.4+ and Laravel 11 to 13.
• You can live with a beta: pin the minor, bring your own auth, and do without CSV export, cross-model search and multi-tenancy for now.