---
title: "Likes & ranking — Comments for Laravel | Roundly"
description: "Like, upvote and react to comments via Likes for Laravel, then rank threads by most-liked or trending with per-viewer state in one query."
url: https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/comments-for-laravel/likes
language: en
---

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[Comments for Laravel](https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/comments-for-laravel.md)

# Likes & ranking

Comment reactions are powered by Likes for Laravel: the Comment model implements Likeable, so any model can like or upvote it. Actors are always passed explicitly — the package never resolves the acting user from the auth guard:

```php
use RoundlyConsulting\Likes\Facades\Likes;

Likes::actor($user)->like($comment);
Likes::actor($user)->unlike($comment);
Likes::actor($user)->toggle($comment);   // bool: now liked?

$comment->likesCount();        // live or eager count
$comment->isLikedBy($user);    // bool
$comment->likeState($viewer);  // ['count' => 2, 'viewer_state' => ['liked' => true, 'reaction' => 'like'], 'breakdown' => ['like' => 2]]
```

## Typed reactions

Beyond a plain like, react() keeps one active reaction per actor and switches it in place. Reaction types must be listed in the likes.reactions allowlist:

```php
// config/likes.php → 'reactions' => ['like', 'love'],
Likes::actor($user)->as('love')->react($comment); // one active reaction, switched in place

$comment->likesCount('love');        // count for one reaction type
$comment->isLikedBy($user, 'love');  // bool
```

## Ranking & viewer state

Rank and hydrate a whole thread through the CommentQuery builder — most-liked, trending, and single-query per-viewer like-state (no N+1):

```php
Comments::for($post)->orderByLikesDesc()->get();      // "top comments"
Comments::for($post)->orderByTrending()->get();       // recency-weighted "hot"
Comments::for($post)->withLikedState($viewer)->get(); // each row: ->is_liked, ->liked_reaction
```

likeState() returns a compact payload for APIs and Blade — the total count, the viewer’s state and the per-reaction breakdown. Pass the viewer explicitly; without one it renders a guest state.

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