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Meerkat Laravel Package
stillat/meerkat
Meerkat is a lightweight Laravel package from Stillat that keeps watch over your application, offering a simple, expressive API for monitoring important events and reacting when things change, with minimal setup and no heavy dependencies.
Stillat Meerkat is a lightweight Laravel package that helps you keep a watchful eye on your application’s Eloquent models. It provides an expressive way to define watchers that react when model attributes or events change, keeping observation logic out of your models and easy to organize.
- Define model watchers with a simple API
- React to attribute changes and Eloquent events
- Keep watcher logic separate from models
- Integrates with Laravel’s service container and config
- Lightweight, customizable, and easy to test
Frequently asked questions about Meerkat
- What is stillat/meerkat?
- Meerkat is a comments and moderation addon built for Statamic 6. It registers through Statamic's addon service provider and contributes routes, views, migrations, and Control Panel screens to your site. Comment records live in the same database as the rest of your content, so editors manage discussions alongside entries they already publish. It is not a general-purpose Laravel package.
- Can I use Meerkat in a plain Laravel app without Statamic?
- No. Meerkat is a Statamic 6 addon, not a standalone Laravel commenting package, so it only makes sense in an application that already uses Statamic as its content layer. Pulling Statamic in purely to obtain comments is a disproportionate architectural commitment. For a Laravel or Livewire-only stack, evaluate Disqus, Commento, or a small in-house Livewire component instead.
- How do I install Meerkat?
- Install it with Composer, then publish the configuration, migrations, and front-end assets. You wire the comment form into your existing Antlers or Blade templates and configure moderation behaviour in the Control Panel. Because the package targets a single opinionated host framework, there is little dependency ambiguity, but confirm your PHP and Laravel versions match Statamic 6 requirements first.
- Which Statamic versions does Meerkat support?
- Meerkat is versioned specifically for Statamic 6, so an application still on Statamic 5 should treat it as not available yet. Ask the maintainer which 6.x minor versions are explicitly tested and what the stated policy is when Statamic ships a major release. Comments are user-generated content you cannot simply drop during an upgrade window, so pin versions deliberately.
- What license does Meerkat use, and can I use it commercially?
- The public repository reports a NOASSERTION license, which means you cannot assume redistribution, modification, or even unrestricted production rights. Stillat addons are typically commercial or proprietary, so treat legal review as a hard gate before any engineering effort. Ask the vendor directly about per-site versus per-project terms, renewal pricing, and support SLAs.
- How does comment moderation work in Meerkat?
- Moderation is handled through Control Panel screens inside Statamic, so editors review, approve, and manage comments in the same interface they use for content. That adjacency is the package's core value proposition compared with third-party hosted comment services. Confirm the specific moderation states and notification options against the vendor documentation for your target version.
- How do I migrate existing comments into Meerkat?
- Stand Meerkat up in staging first, then map your existing comment records onto its schema with a one-off artisan command. Verify author identity linkage, timestamps, and moderation state fidelity before trusting the import. A safe sequence is to run both systems read-only in parallel for one release cycle before cutting over.
- Can I export comment data out of Meerkat?
- Comments are stored in your application database, which makes raw access straightforward, but you should confirm the data model with the maintainer. Ask whether comments can be exported in a framework-neutral form, since that determines how costly a future move away from the addon would be. A documented export path is worth requiring before adoption.
- What are the alternatives to Meerkat for Laravel and Statamic sites?
- The main options are hosted services like Disqus and Commento, or a small in-house Livewire component backed by your own tables. Meerkat wins only when the site is already Statamic-native and the team wants moderation inside the Control Panel its editors already use. If that adjacency does not matter to you, a build-versus-buy comparison will likely favour a lighter option.
- Is Meerkat actively maintained and safe for production?
- Adoption signals are thin: the public repository shows roughly 6 stars and 0 dependents, and commercial licensing typically means real usage is understated on Packagist. The recorded last release date also appears future-dated, so verify release cadence against Packagist and the vendor changelog rather than trusting package metadata. It is a single-maintainer addon coupled to Statamic 6, so plan for upgrade lag and consider source escrow or audit access.
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