Laravel, Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js, Dark Mode, Laravel Blog, Blog Development, Web Development, Blade Templates, CRUD Operations, Eloquent Relationships, UI/UX, Responsive Design, JavaScript Framework, PHP, Frontend Development, Backend Development, Content Management, SEO Optimization, Secure Forms, CSRF Protection, Query Optimization, User Authentication, Content Moderation.

Implementing Dark Mode in Your Laravel Blog with Tailwind & Alpine.js

Mar 29, 2025 |

12 minutes read

Adding Dark Mode to Your Laravel Blog

A properly structured blog maximizes engagement and delivers worthwhile content to the Laravel users. With current web development trends favoring a light and responsive user experience, Laravel with Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js provides an effective solution. Laravel is a strong backend, Tailwind CSS provides a smooth, customizable look, and Alpine.js offers dynamic interactivity.

One key feature most users love is dark mode, which minimizes eye strain and makes reading more comfortable in dim lighting. Here in this tutorial, we are going to go through the steps of adding dark mode to your Laravel blog using Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js.

Understanding the Structure by Laravel

Prior to moving on to dark mode implementation, let’s consider the essential features of our Laravel blog installation. These features interoperate to govern and present blog content effectively.

Posts Table: This table within the database maintains all blog-related information, i.e., the title, text, author, and timestamps, to provide orderly storage and fetching of posts.
Post Model: Serves as a gateway between the database and the application, managing data queries, relationships, and business logic for blog posts in Laravel.
Post Controller: Manages CRUD operations, the controller processes user requests, validates input, and manages post creation, editing, deletion, and retrieval.
Routes: Specifies the structure of the blog URL based on mapping the endpoints to the methods of controllers so that the users can access, create, and engage with the posts hassle-free.
Blade Templates: The templating engine of Laravel, Blade, is employed in generating blog pages dynamically, which uses Tailwind CSS for styles and Alpine.js for interactive features such as toggles and animation.

How to Set Up the Blog in Laravel

Step 1: Creating the Laravel Project

composer create-project –prefer-dist laravel/laravel blog

Step 2: Setting Up Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js

npm install -D tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer

Configure tailwind.config.js:

module.exports = {
content: [“./resources/**/*.blade.php”, “./resources/**/*.js”, “./resources/**/*.vue”],
theme: { extend: {}, },
plugins: [],
};

Include Tailwind in app.css:

@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;

Install Alpine.js:

npm install alpinejs

Add Alpine.js to app.js:

import Alpine from ‘alpinejs’;
window.Alpine = Alpine;
Alpine.start();

Step 3: Setting Up the Database

php artisan migrate

Step 4: Creating the Post Model and Migration

php artisan make:model Post -m

Step 5: Creating the Controller

php artisan make:controller PostController

Step 6: Defining Routes

use App\Http\Controllers\PostController;
Route::get(‘/blog’, [PostController::class, ‘index’]);
Route::post(‘/blog’, [PostController::class, ‘store’]);

Step 7: Creating the Blade View with Tailwind CSS & Alpine.js

Step 8: Adding Alpine.js Interactivity

<div x-data=”{ open: false }”>
<button @click=”open = !open” class=”bg-gray-300 px-2 py-1″>Toggle Content</button>
<p x-show=”open” class=”mt-2″>{{ $post->content }}</p>
</div>

Step-by-Step Guide to Dark Mode with Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js

Step 1: Configuring Tailwind CSS for Dark Mode

Modify the Tailwind configuration file (`tailwind.config.js`) to enable dark mode:

module.exports = {
darkMode: ‘class’, // Enable class-based dark mode
content: [“./resources/**/*.blade.php”, “./resources/**/*.js”, “./resources/**/*.vue”],
theme: { extend: {}, },
plugins: [],
};

Step 2: Creating Custom CSS for Dark Mode

To further enhance dark mode styling, create custom CSS in `resources/css/app.css`:

.wrapper{

@apply dark:bg-grey-300;

}

Step 3: Adding Dark Mode Toggle in Blade File

Modify the Blade template (`resources/views/layouts/app.blade.php`) to include a toggle button:

<body x-data=”{ darkMode: localStorage.getItem(‘dark-mode’) === ‘true’ }”
:class=”{ ‘dark-mode’: darkMode }”>
<button @click=”darkMode = !darkMode; localStorage.setItem(‘dark-mode’, darkMode)”
class=”p-2 bg-gray-300 dark:bg-gray-700 text-black dark:text-white rounded”>
Toggle Dark Mode
</button>
</body>

Step 4: Applying Dark Mode to Blog Posts

Modify the blog index page (`resources/views/blog/index.blade.php`) to support dark mode:

<div class=”max-w-4xl mx-auto p-6 bg-white dark:bg-gray-800 text-black dark:text-white”>
<h1 class=”text-3xl font-bold mb-6″>Laravel Blog</h1>
</div>

Best Practices for Managing a Blog

To make your Laravel blog run efficiently, securely, and intuitively, observe these best practices for maximum performance and ease of maintenance.

Employ Eloquent Relationships – If your blog has categories, tags, or authors, utilize Laravel’s Eloquent relationships such as hasMany, belongsTo, and belongs To Many to effectively associate posts with related entities. This enhances the database structure and simplifies querying data.
Optimize Queries – Rather than fetching all blog posts at one time, utilize Laravel’s native pagination to fetch content in batches. This minimizes database load, increases performance, and provides a more seamless experience for users viewing several posts.
Enhance UI with Tailwind Components – Tailwind CSS comes with a rich set of pre-built utility classes that make it easier to improve the look of your blog. Use Tailwind’s responsive grid system, typography utilities, and interactive components to design a neat and interactive layout.
Secure Forms – Secure user input by adding CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) protection to Laravel forms. Also, validate user-submitted data with Laravel’s validation rules to block SQL injection, XSS attacks, and other flaws.

Enhance Your Laravel Blog with Dark Mode & Interactivity!

The Way Forward

Beyond the core framework, It offers powerful tools for modern web application development. Developers looking to build interactive and responsive user interfaces can integrate Livewire, which enables dynamic UI components without writing extensive JavaScript, or Inertia.js, which provides a seamless connection between Laravel and front-end frameworks like Vue.js and React.

These technologies simplify the development of modern single-page applications (SPAs) while maintaining Laravel’s elegant backend structure.

Creating a blog with Laravel, Tailwind CSS, and Alpine.js provides an efficient, cutting-edge way to manage content. Laravel’s robust backend makes it easy to manage data, Tailwind CSS delivers an attractive and responsive look and feel, and Alpine.js is light interactivity without the overkill of massive JavaScript frameworks.

Using best practices for query optimization, UI boost, and security, you can have a frictionless, high-performance blogging experience for your readers. As you improve your blog, consider adding features like search functionality, user authentication, and content moderation to improve usability and engagement even further.

Free Consultation

Mayur Dosi

Mar 29 2025

I am Assistant Project Manager at iFlair, specializing in PHP, Laravel, CodeIgniter, Symphony, JavaScript, JS frameworks ,Python, and DevOps. With extensive experience in web development and cloud infrastructure, I play a key role in managing and delivering high-quality software solutions. I am Passionate about technology, automation, and scalable architectures, I am ensures seamless project execution, bridging the gap between development and operations. I am adept at leading teams, optimizing workflows, and integrating cutting-edge solutions to enhance performance and efficiency. Project planning and good strategy to manage projects tasks and deliver to clients on time. Easy to adopt new technologies learn and work on it as per the new requirments and trends. When not immersed in code and project planning, I am enjoy exploring the latest advancements in AI, cloud computing, and open-source technologies.