Laravel Observers vs Event Listeners: What’s the Difference?

Published in Originals on Apr 23, 2025

If you’ve been working with Laravel for a little while, you’ve probably come across observers and event listeners. At first, they can seem pretty similar, they both “listen” for something to happen and then run some code in response.

But as you build more complex apps, you’ll start to notice that they’re actually meant for different things. Knowing when to use an observer vs a listener can save you a lot of confusion, keep your codebase cleaner, and help you build apps that are easier to scale and maintain.

Let’s break it all down, so you’ll know exactly when to reach for each one.

What’s the Core Difference?

Here’s the short version:

  • Observers are tied to Eloquent models. They’re designed to respond to events like creating, updating, or deleting that happen during a model’s lifecycle.

  • Event listeners respond to custom events that you trigger yourself. They’re ideal for when you want to run logic after something significant happens in your app, like a user registering or an order being placed.

In other words, if you're reacting to something that happened to a model, use an observer. If you're responding to a broader, app-level event, go with an event and listener.

When to Use Laravel Observers

Observers are great for keeping model-specific logic out of your models and controllers. Think of them as little helpers that watch over your models and take care of certain tasks automatically whenever something happens.

For example, maybe you want to log a message every time a post is deleted. Instead of writing that logic in your controller or directly in the model, you can put it in a PostObserver.

Example: Logging When a Post Is Deleted

First, generate an observer:

php artisan make:observer PostObserver --model=Post

Then add a deleted method:

public function deleted(Post $post)
{
    Log::info("Post '{$post->title}' was deleted by user ID: {$post->user_id}");
}

Finally, register the observer in your AppServiceProvider:

Post::observe(PostObserver::class);

That’s it! Now, every time a post is deleted, that log entry will be created automatically, no extra code in your controller needed.

Why Observers Are Useful

  • They keep logic related to a specific model all in one place.
  • They reduce repetition if you’re doing the same thing across multiple parts of your app.
  • They’re automatic—you don’t have to manually trigger anything.

When to Use Event Listeners

Event listeners come into play when you want your app to respond to something that’s not directly tied to a model’s lifecycle.

Let’s say a user signs up. You want to:

  • Send them a welcome email
  • Notify the admin team
  • Kick off some background job to sync with a CRM

You could shove all of that into your controller—but that gets messy fast. A cleaner solution is to dispatch a UserRegistered event and create separate listeners to handle each task.

Example: Handling a User Registration Event

php artisan make:event UserRegistered
php artisan make:listener SendWelcomeEmail --event=UserRegistered
php artisan make:listener NotifyAdmin --event=UserRegistered

Inside your event:

class UserRegistered
{
    public function __construct(public User $user) {}
}

In your controller:

event(new UserRegistered($user));

Each listener will take care of one responsibility, keeping everything decoupled and easy to test.

Why Listeners Are Powerful

  • They help you respond to events in multiple ways without cluttering your controller.
  • You can queue listeners to handle tasks like sending emails in the background.
  • They promote better separation of concerns—each piece of logic lives in its own dedicated class.

Comparing Observers vs Listeners

Here’s a quick cheat sheet to help you decide which one to use:

Question Observer Listener
Is it tied to a specific model's lifecycle? ✅ Yes ❌ No
Does it need to be manually dispatched? ❌ No ✅ Yes
Are you reacting to a custom app event? ❌ No ✅ Yes
Will multiple things happen in response to one event? ❌ No ✅ Yes

Can You Use Both? Absolutely.

Sometimes it makes sense to use both together.

Let’s say you’re using an observer to detect when a new user is created. Inside that observer, you could dispatch a UserRegistered event to handle the rest—like sending emails, syncing data, etc.

Laravel gives you the flexibility to mix and match these tools however you need. The key is to keep your code organized and responsibilities clearly separated.

Concluding

At the end of the day, both observers and listeners are about reacting to something happening in your app. The main difference is what kind of “something” you're reacting to.

  • If it’s a model-level event like saving or deleted, go with an observer.
  • If it’s an app-level event like “a user just signed up” or “an order was placed,” use an event and listener combo.

Understanding the difference will help you write Laravel code that’s not only cleaner but also easier to extend and maintain as your app grows.

Got questions? Confused about which one fits your use case? Hit me up on X (@burtds). Always happy to talk Laravel.



#laravel, #php, #observers, #listeners, #events