Managing Hierarchical Data in Laravel: Recursive, Adjacency List, and Nested Set Compared

This article explores three practical strategies for handling hierarchical data in Laravel 12 APIs, using a realistic dataset of 1,000 automotive part categories:

• Recursive Eloquent Relationships - Laravel-native and intuitive
• Adjacency List with Recursive CTEs - using staudenmeir/laravel-adjacency-list
• Nested Set Model - optimized for reads via kalnoy/nestedset

You'll get practical code samples, sample API responses, and some reality-check benchmarks. Whether you're building a category tree, comment system, or organizational chart, this guide will help you pick the right approach.

🔗 Read the article: Managing Hierarchical Data in Laravel

💻 View source code: github.com/tegos/laravel-hierarchical-data