title: Using Laravel/Dingo for an API only
body: <p>We have a large scale PHP appliction which is basically written in our own framework, from scratch. Now for mobile development we need to create an API, but the question is wether to use just a rest api package, or go for something more robust. Writing out own rest api from scratch is not an option anymore.</p>
  
  <p>I have looked at the option to include the <a href="http://www.slimframework.com/" rel="nofollow">Slim framework</a>. This will be quite easy to implement, but it lacks a good structure in my opinion.</p>
  
  <p>Another option I have looked at is <a href="https://github.com/dingo/api" rel="nofollow">Dingo</a>, which is build on top of Laravel. One great advantage is that it already has a huge structure and large amount of tools to work with.</p>
  
  <p>Question here is, will Laravel be too much overhead to use just for an API, while we have our own framework running on the same server too. Note that we have to include a large part of our own framework in order to keep things running smooth. All models and list will come from our own framework.</p>
  
  <p>I don't know if Laravel will load a lot of unnecessary items before getting to the API part, or if this will be just lightweight as the Slim framework would be.</p>