What makes you think I don't use Rails? I use whatever I think fits the purpose at hand. I sometimes use Rails for a project, sometimes I might use Node.js and other times I'll use PHP. It all depends on different factors like budgets, time, the task and team (if any).
Frameworks and languages are a lot like databases. They all achieve the same thing, they're just all slightly different and good for different purposes. I sometimes use MySQL, other times I'll use PostgreSQL, sometimes I might use a graph database like Neo4j or other times I might even use something like MongoDB.
The Rails community has been around a lot longer than Laravel's community, so you can't even compare them. The only community worthy of being compared to Rails is Codeigniter's and at the peak of Codeigniter's popularity, I would argue Codeigniter had the bigger community. Laravel is a mere couple of years old, the community is already pretty strong. Lets reevaluate soon when the right amount of time has passed and then see where the community is at. You only have to look at the amount of Github stars to see how popular it is.
So Laravel is a lot like Rails, but it doesn't compare to Rails because it's not matured yet. Ok..
MySQL vs PostgreSQL vs MongoDB vs Neo4j are all data stores with very different principles and goals. To say they all "achieve the same thing" is like saying an airplane is the same as a speedboat because they both get you from point A to point B.
I certainly believe that frameworks and libraries are tools for different problems and
there isn't a one size fits all approach, I just have trouble discerning what problem Laravel is solving better than other frameworks or what makes it advantageous to use.
Frameworks and languages are a lot like databases. They all achieve the same thing, they're just all slightly different and good for different purposes. I sometimes use MySQL, other times I'll use PostgreSQL, sometimes I might use a graph database like Neo4j or other times I might even use something like MongoDB.
The Rails community has been around a lot longer than Laravel's community, so you can't even compare them. The only community worthy of being compared to Rails is Codeigniter's and at the peak of Codeigniter's popularity, I would argue Codeigniter had the bigger community. Laravel is a mere couple of years old, the community is already pretty strong. Lets reevaluate soon when the right amount of time has passed and then see where the community is at. You only have to look at the amount of Github stars to see how popular it is.