Installation

There are many ways to install Laravel, which are detailed here.

However, this is the best way to install Laravel without installing the Laravel Installer. First, go to the command line and change to the directory where you would like to place your project. Then:

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel project-name

Note: This will install the latest version of Laravel that is compatible with the version of PHP on your machine. So if your machine is running PHP 5.6.30, this command will install Laravel 5.4. But if it's running 7.3, this command will install Laravel 5.8 (as of early 2019).

Earlier Versions of Laravel

To install earlier versions:

// Laravel 5.5:
composer create-project laravel/laravel="5.5.*" project-name

// Laravel 5.4:
composer create-project laravel/laravel="5.4.*" project-name

// etc.

While there are earlier versions of Laravel, it's not recommended to use those earlier versions for new projects, as they make use of older technology.