Antlers vs Blade in Statamic: Which Should You Use in 2026?

One of the first decisions you make on any Statamic project is which templating engine to reach for: Antlers, which Statamic ships with by default, or Blade, the same engine you already use everywhere else in Laravel.

If you've come from a Laravel background, the answer feels obvious at first ("just use Blade, I already know it"). If you've worked on older Statamic sites, you've probably seen plenty of Antlers and might be wondering whether it's worth learning properly. The honest answer is that Statamic 6 supports both fully, and the right pick depends on what kind of site you're building and who's going to maintain it.

In this post I'll walk through how the two engines actually differ, what each one is good at, the gotchas I've hit on real projects, and how to mix them when it makes sense.

The Short Version

The quick take, if you want it before the detail:

• Pick Antlers when you want the fastest path to a working content-driven site, you like terse template syntax, and you don't mind learning Statamic-specific conventions.
• Pick Blade when your team already lives in Laravel land, you're using Livewire or other Blade-first tooling, or you want the IDE support that Blade has had for years.
• Mix both when one engine is clearly better for part of the site than the other. Statamic is happy with this and the integration works in both directions.

The rest of the post is the long version of why.

What Antlers Is

Antlers is Statamic's own template language. It uses double curly braces for everything, has CMS concepts baked into the syntax, and combines what Blade and a controller would normally do into a single template file.

A typical Antlers blog index might look like this:

1{{ collection:blog limit="10" sort="date:desc" }}
2  <article>
3    <h2><a href="{{ url }}">{{ title }}</a></h2>
4    <time>{{ date | format("F j, Y") }}</time>
5    <p>{{ excerpt }}</p>
6  </article>
7{{ /collection:blog }}

That single template fetches entries, paginates them, exposes each entry's fields as scoped variables, and renders the markup. There's no controller, no Entry::query() call, no view() invocation. The collection:blog tag is doing the heavy lifting.

The things Antlers does well:

• Tags for accessing Statamic features ({{ collection }}, {{ nav }}, {{ form:create }}, {{ partial }}, {{ glide }}, and dozens more).
• Modifiers chained with the pipe operator ({{ title | upper | ensure_right("!") }}).
• Loop helpers automatically exposed inside any loop ({{ first }}, {{ last }}, {{ index }}, {{ count }}, {{ total_results }}).
• CMS-aware control flow like the gatekeeper operator ({{ show_bio ?= author:bio }}), null coalescing ({{ meta_title ?? title }}), and inline assignment with orderby, where, take, groupby.

Here's an inline sort over a list, as one example of what's possible without leaving the template:

1{{ sorted = people orderby(age "asc") }}
2{{ sorted }}
3  {{ name }} ({{ age }})
4{{ /sorted }}

That runs entirely in the template, no helper functions required.

File Extensions

A quick note on file extensions before we go further. Antlers templates use .antlers.html by default. If you want native PHP tags (<?php ?>) inside Antlers, rename the file to .antlers.php. Statamic treats both extensions as Antlers templates. Blade uses the standard .blade.php. The extension is how Statamic decides which engine to parse the file with.

What Blade Is (in Statamic)

Blade in Statamic is the same Blade you already know from Laravel, with a couple of Statamic-specific helpers layered on top. You name your view something.blade.php instead of something.antlers.html and Statamic will pick it up automatically.

The same blog index in Blade looks something like this:

1@foreach (Statamic::tag('collection:blog')->limit(10)->sort('date:desc') as $entry)
2    <article>
3        <h2><a href="{{ $entry->url }}">{{ $entry->title }}</a></h2>
4        <time>{{ $entry->date->format('F j, Y') }}</time>
5        <p>{{ $entry->excerpt }}</p>
6    </article>
7@endforeach

A few things stand out compared to Antlers:

• Blade escapes output by default. {{ $entry->title }} runs through htmlspecialchars, where Antlers' {{ title }} does not. To output raw HTML in Blade you use {!! $entry->content !!}.
• The current page's data is exposed as $page, not as bare variables. So you write {{ $page->title }} rather than {{ title }}.
• Loop helpers are Blade's $loop->first, $loop->last, $loop->iteration etc., not the Antlers equivalents.

You still get full access to Statamic tags and modifiers in Blade through several different mechanisms. We'll get to those shortly.

The Real Differences

Let's get into the meaningful ones.

Output Escaping

This is the one that bites people first. In Antlers, {{ title }} outputs whatever's in the field, HTML and all. In Blade, {{ $page->title }} is escaped, and you have to opt into raw output with {!! !!}.

For a CMS where editors paste rich content into Bard fields, this matters. With Antlers, content "just renders." With Blade, you need to be deliberate about which fields contain HTML and use {!! !!} for those:

1<h1>{{ $page->title }}</h1>
2{!! $page->content !!}

This is a security feature, not a bug. But it does mean Blade templates have a slightly higher surface area for "why is this field showing raw HTML tags" bugs.

Accessing CMS Features

In Antlers, every Statamic tag is one syntax away. To pull a navigation:

1{{ nav:main }}
2  <a href="{{ url }}">{{ title }}</a>
3{{ /nav:main }}

In Blade, you've got four options, all of which work:

1. The <s:> Antlers Blade Component syntax. Statamic registers components prefixed with s: (or statamic:) that mirror Antlers tags:

1<s:nav handle="main">
2    <a href="{{ $url }}">{{ $title }}</a>
3</s:nav>

The full tag-name-as-element-name form also works:

1<s:collection:blog limit="2">
2    {{ $title }}
3</s:collection:blog>

2. The Statamic::tag() fluent helper. This gives you a PHP-like API:

1@foreach (Statamic::tag('collection:blog')->limit(3) as $page)
2    <li>{{ $page->title }}</li>
3@endforeach

For parameters that contain colons (title:contains, for example), you use ->param() instead of treating them as method calls:

1@php($tag = Statamic::tag('collection:pages')
2    ->param('title:contains', 'pizza')
3    ->fetch())

For paginated results, the fluent API exposes the result as an array with posts, paginate, total_results, and no_results keys:

1@php($tag = Statamic::tag('collection:blog')->paginate(10)->as('posts')->fetch())
2 
3@foreach ($tag['posts'] as $post)
4    <article>{{ $post->title }}</article>
5@endforeach
6 
7{!! $tag['paginate']['auto_links'] !!}

3. The @tags directive. This extracts tag results into variables you can use directly. Useful when you want named results without manually calling fetch():

1@tags(['posts' => ['collection:blog' => ['limit' => 5]]])
2 
3@foreach ($posts as $post)
4    <li>{{ $post->title }}</li>
5@endforeach

4. The @antlers directive. When a chunk of Antlers is genuinely cleaner than its Blade equivalent, you can just write Antlers inline:

1@antlers
2    {{ collection:blog limit="3" }}
3        <li>{{ title }}</li>
4    {{ /collection:blog }}
5@endantlers

All four approaches hit the same underlying tag system, so the choice is purely about readability for the specific block you're writing.

Modifiers

In Antlers, modifiers pipe naturally:

1{{ content | strip_tags | truncate(200) | ensure_right("...") }}

In Blade, you reach for Statamic::modify():

1{{ Statamic::modify($entry->content)->stripTags()->truncate(200)->ensureRight('...') }}

Statamic also publishes a modify helper function you can import for slightly tidier syntax:

1@php
2    use function Statamic\View\Blade\modify;
3@endphp
4 
5{{ modify($entry->content)->stripTags()->truncate(200)->ensureRight('...') }}

For one-off transformations, both engines are roughly the same effort. For deeply chained modifiers (which Antlers users tend to lean on), Antlers will feel terser.

Layouts and Partials

Antlers has its own layout system ({{ template_content }}) and a {{ partial }} tag with slot support:

1{{ partial:modal }}
2  Default body content.
3  {{ slot:header }}Custom header{{ /slot:header }}
4{{ /partial:modal }}

Blade gives you the full Laravel toolkit: @extends, @section, @yield, @include, Blade components, slots, @props, @aware, the lot. If you're building a design system with reusable components, this is where Blade pulls clearly ahead. Blade components feel natural for atomic UI pieces because you're already writing them that way in the rest of your Laravel stack.

You can also mix them: if you want a Blade layout but an Antlers template, the rendered template lands in $template_content:

1{{-- resources/views/layout.blade.php --}}
2<!doctype html>
3<html>
4<head><title>{{ $page->title }}</title></head>
5<body>
6    {!! $template_content !!}
7</body>
8</html>

Loop Variables

A small but constant friction point if you switch back and forth:

Antlers also exposes {{ no_results }} directly inside a tag loop, which I genuinely miss in Blade.

Performance

There's an old talking point that Antlers is slow because it parses with regex on every render, while Blade compiles to PHP. That's true in the strict sense: Blade caches a compiled view to storage/framework/views, while Antlers does more work at render time.

In practice, on most marketing sites it doesn't matter, because the Statamic static cache catches the rendered output anyway. Where I have seen it matter is on complex page builders with 20+ partials per page and no static caching. There, Blade can be measurably faster.

If you care about templating performance specifically, set up static caching first. That makes the engine choice a wash for cached pages.

IDE Support

This is the most underrated reason people switch to Blade. PhpStorm, VS Code with the right extensions, and most other IDEs have years-old, well-maintained support for Blade: syntax highlighting, formatting, navigation between components, auto-completion of directives, the works.

Antlers support exists, but it's less mature. If you live in PhpStorm and care about clicking through to component definitions, formatting on save, and reliable highlighting in mixed HTML files, Blade is just a nicer place to be day to day.

Tooling and Ecosystem Fit

This is the strongest argument for Blade if you're already a Laravel developer. Everything that integrates with Blade in Laravel works the same way inside a Statamic site:

• Livewire components are Blade. If your site has any interactive bits driven by Livewire, those views are Blade, and using Blade for everything else removes the mental switch.
• Flux UI, Filament's components, blade-icons, and most Laravel packages ship Blade components. They drop straight into a Statamic site running Blade.
• Tailwind, Alpine.js, and any other frontend tooling doesn't care which engine you're using, but the documentation and community examples are almost all Blade.

If you're not using Livewire and your site is mostly content-driven marketing pages, this matters less. If you're building anything reactive, it nudges hard toward Blade.

When Antlers Is Genuinely Better

Despite all the Blade-friendly arguments, there are real cases where I'd reach for Antlers first:

Content editors writing template snippets. If you're letting non-developers drop Antlers into Bard or Markdown fields (which Statamic supports with antlers: true on a field's blueprint), Antlers is the right choice. The syntax is closer to Liquid or Twig and the security model around allowedContentTags makes it safer to expose to editors.

Tiny sites where I just want to ship. For a 10-page brochure site, I can write the whole thing in Antlers in less time than it takes to set up Blade components properly. The terseness pays off when the site fits in one developer's head.

Sites already on Antlers. If you're maintaining an existing Antlers site, don't rewrite everything to Blade for the sake of it. Add new pages in whichever engine fits, and only convert old templates when there's a real reason (you're adding Livewire to a page, you're sharing a component across many pages, etc.).

Starter kits built around Antlers. Statamic Peak is a popular Antlers-based starter kit with an opinionated structure, page builder, and component library. If you're starting a site with Peak, going against the grain by converting everything to Blade is more work than it's worth. Run with Peak's conventions.

When Blade Is Genuinely Better

The flip side:

Anywhere Livewire shows up. Livewire components are Blade. Their host views are Blade. Sharing components between a Livewire form and a regular page works cleanly if both are Blade.

Design systems with lots of shared components. Blade components, slots, props, and @aware give you a proper component model. If your designer hands you a Figma file with 30 reusable atoms, building them as Blade components feels right.

Teams with Laravel developers and no Statamic background. Every Laravel developer can read a Blade template on day one. Antlers takes a few hours to internalise. On a team rotation, Blade is faster to onboard.

Apps with custom controllers. If a page needs server-side logic that doesn't fit into a Statamic tag (a complex search, a third-party API call, a custom view model), you'll end up writing a controller and a Blade view anyway. Once you're there for one route, it's easier to be there for all of them.

Mixing Both in One Project

Statamic actively supports this, and on real projects I find I land in this mixed state most of the time. A few patterns I've used:

Blade layout, Antlers templates. Use Blade for layout.blade.php so you can lean on Blade components for the header, nav, and footer. Let entry templates stay as Antlers because they're short and content-driven.

Antlers globally, Blade for one page. Most of the site is Antlers, but the contact form page uses a Livewire component. That page becomes a Blade template that includes the Livewire component. Nothing else changes.

@antlers for a single tricky block. You're 90% through a Blade template and there's one piece that would be five lines in Antlers and twenty in Blade. Drop into @antlers ... @endantlers for that block:

1<div class="grid">
2    @antlers
3        {{ collection:case_studies sort="date:desc" limit="3" }}
4            {{ partial:case_study_card }}
5        {{ /collection:case_studies }}
6    @endantlers
7</div>

A Side-by-Side Example

Here's the same "latest blog posts" widget written in each engine, with proper escaping and a fallback for when there are no posts.

Antlers:

 1{{ collection:blog sort="date:desc" limit="3" }}
 2  <article>
 3    <h3><a href="{{ url }}">{{ title }}</a></h3>
 4    <time datetime="{{ date | format("Y-m-d") }}">
 5      {{ date | format("F j, Y") }}
 6    </time>
 7    <p>{{ excerpt | strip_tags | truncate(140) }}</p>
 8  </article>
 9  {{ if no_results }}
10    <p>No posts yet.</p>
11  {{ /if }}
12{{ /collection:blog }}

Blade:

 1@php
 2    $posts = Statamic::tag('collection:blog')
 3        ->sort('date:desc')
 4        ->limit(3)
 5        ->fetch();
 6@endphp
 7 
 8@forelse ($posts as $post)
 9    <article>
10        <h3><a href="{{ $post->url }}">{{ $post->title }}</a></h3>
11        <time datetime="{{ $post->date->format('Y-m-d') }}">
12            {{ $post->date->format('F j, Y') }}
13        </time>
14        <p>{{ Statamic::modify($post->excerpt)->stripTags()->truncate(140) }}</p>
15    </article>
16@empty
17    <p>No posts yet.</p>
18@endforelse

The Antlers version is shorter. The Blade version is more explicit about what's happening and slots into a wider Laravel codebase more naturally. Both are correct.

Common Gotchas

A few things I've tripped over on real projects:

Escaping bites when you migrate. Copy an Antlers template to Blade and your Bard fields will suddenly show literal HTML tags. Switch those bindings to {!! $page->content !!} and you're fine. Don't blindly add {!! !!} to every field, only the ones that should contain HTML.

$page vs bare variables. Antlers exposes the current entry's fields as top-level variables. Blade exposes them as $page->field. When converting templates, every reference to {{ field_name }} becomes {{ $page->field_name }}.

Loop variable names differ. Blade's $loop->iteration is 1-indexed; Antlers' {{ count }} is also 1-indexed, but {{ index }} is 0-indexed. If you're counting "post 1 of 10," double-check which you're using.

Statamic::tag()->fetch() returns a collection, not a query builder. If you want to chain pagination, you need ->paginate()->as('whatever')->fetch() and pull results from the returned array. The fluent API looks like Eloquent but isn't quite the same shape.

The @cascade directive. If you're rendering a Blade view from a non-Statamic route (a custom controller, for example), Statamic globals aren't automatically in scope. Add @cascade(['site', 'page' => null]) at the top of your view to pull them in.

My Recommendation

For a brand new Statamic 6 project in 2026, I default to Blade everywhere, with the freedom to drop into Antlers wherever it's clearly better (usually small content-driven loops). The reasons, ranked:

1. IDE support is years ahead.
2. Livewire and the rest of the Laravel ecosystem just works.
3. New developers on the project don't need to learn a new templating language before they can be useful.
4. The @antlers, <s:>, @tags, and Statamic::tag() escape hatches mean I never feel boxed in.

For an existing Antlers project, I don't migrate for migration's sake. I add new pages in whichever engine fits and only convert old templates when there's a real reason.

There's no wrong answer here. Both engines are fully supported, both will stick around for the long haul, and you can mix them as freely as you like. Pick the one that matches your team and your stack, and use the other one where it earns its keep.

Building a Statamic site and want a second opinion on architecture decisions? I work with Statamic and Laravel every day and would love to help. Get in touch to discuss your project.