Laravel Nova / Filament admin panel customization

Nova vs Filament: Selecting admin panels that match your workflow

You get pure insights from our solution architect on platform comparison, customization depth, and multi-tenant access patterns for internal tools

Internal admin panels often start generic, teams settle for basic CRUD interfaces that don't match actual workflows, leading to manual workarounds and data entry errors. The customization decision involves choosing between Laravel Nova's polished paid ecosystem versus Filament's open-source flexibility based on customization needs and budget constraints, extending resources and actions to handle complex business logic like approval workflows, bulk operations, and conditional field visibility, and implementing multi-tenant data.

Choose Filament if you need deep customization, open‑source flexibility, and rapid iteration without vendor lock‑in—it's Laravel‑native and scales well for complex workflows. Pick Nova when your team values polished out‑of‑box UX, you're okay with subscription costs (~$99/mo), and your needs align with its resource/lens model without heavy overrides. In 2026, Filament leads for new projects unless Nova's ecosystem fits perfectly.

Start with Nova's core resources for CRUD, then layer on custom tools (fields, filters, actions) that encapsulate business rules—like approval workflows or bulk actions tied to your domain logic. Keep customizations composable by extracting logic to service classes, avoiding fat controllers, so changes stay focused and testable without touching core Nova code.

In Filament, create tenant context middleware to scope resources dynamically (e.g., ->modifyQueryUsing(fn ($query) => $query->where('tenant_id', tenant()))), use tenant‑specific panels or conditional navigation, and enforce permissions via Spatie roles or Filament's gate policies. This keeps data isolation airtight while giving each tenant a tailored view of their world.

Define custom Value widgets pulling from your analytics/services for KPIs (revenue trends, user funnels), and Action widgets for workflows (order fulfillment, content moderation). Use Filament's Table widgets for interactive lists or embed Livewire components for rich interactivity, always sourcing data from cached/optimized queries.

Leverage Laravel's built‑in Gates/Policies as the single source of truth for row‑level and resource access, then wire them into Nova lenses or Filament's can* methods and tenancy traits. Add Spatie Permission for granular RBAC across teams/roles, ensuring security scales with your org structure without custom hacks.

Override CSS variables and Blade views for theming (Filament's theme system shines here with Tailwind/CSS vars), or publish Nova's assets for full control. Use dynamic config based on tenant/brand (e.g., config('brand.logo')) so one codebase serves multiple clients with distinct looks, reducing maintenance overhead.

Paginate aggressively with efficient indexes, lazy‑load relationships, and cache widget metrics; offload heavy reports to queued exports. For millions of records, use Filament's table bulk actions sparingly, add search facets, and consider sharding or read replicas, test with production‑like data volumes early.

Admin panels that actually work for you

How the customization process works

Audit existing workflows

Design a tailored UI

Build + Extend

Test + Launch

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Nova vs Filament: Selecting admin panels that match your workflow

Make admin work flow