comparison.md

Comparison

Cachelet is not a replacement for Laravel's cache API. It is an operating layer on top of it.

Laravel Primitives

Laravel already gives you strong primitives:

• Cache::remember
• Cache::rememberForever
• locks
• tags on supported stores
• Cache::flexible for stale-while-revalidate

Use raw Laravel primitives when:

• the cache key is local and obvious
• invalidation is close to the write path
• the app does not need shared cache visibility
• the team is comfortable with ad hoc keys

Use Cachelet when:

• multiple cache surfaces should share one contract
• key generation needs to be deterministic and inspectable
• invalidation needs a smaller boundary than flush
• teams need one telemetry shape across core, model, query, and request caches
• operators need preview, receipt, and verification contracts for scoped interventions

Point Solutions

Response-cache, query-cache, and model-cache packages are valid when the app has one narrow caching problem.

Cachelet is a better fit when the team wants:

• one cache family vocabulary
• one coordinate contract
• one inspection story
• one invalidation and telemetry model
• one optional path into external telemetry tooling

Exporter

The exporter is optional. It does not make the OSS runtime complete; the runtime is already useful locally.

Add the exporter when cache evidence needs to feed logs, dashboards, audits, or custom developer tools.

Non-Goals

Cachelet 0.2.x does not claim:

• automatic relational invalidation for arbitrary query graphs
• proxy or CDN orchestration
• Blade fragment caching
• perfect zero-config inference for every cache use case

The product thesis is explicit cache orchestration for Laravel, with a clean attach point into an optional control plane.