PHP Frameworks are widely used for web applications development worldwide. With more than 80 percent of websites and applications built with PHP code, it features as one of the most dominant platforms as of now. If everything had to be developed using CorePHP then it would perhaps have not been so popular, since coding from scratch is a long and tedious process.
It’s the PHP Frameworks that have made this possible, since most of the activity is downsized by it. Instead of writing hundreds of lines of code, specific functionalities can be integrated using ready to use components, libraries, controllers, etc.
However, choosing the right Framework for your project can be tricky. So to make your selection easier, we have compiled the most popular ones here. These are actively maintained by developer communities.
Laravel
One of the finest PHP frameworks till date which has numerous bundled features to simplify development process. Its modular packaging system and query builder is supported by Eloquent. It allows enforcing constraints between multiple databases. There is a great similarity between the syntaxes used in Laravel and Sinatra frameworks.
The Migration feature is the most interesting in Laravel where it offers a robust version control system which eases changes in the application code base thereby facilitating deployment and updating of apps. Apart from that Laravel framework has a Unit testing component which enables discovering and avoiding multiple regressions.
It comes with a plenty of benefits for clients such as:
- It’s modular packaging system saves a lot of time.
- It comes with a lot of inbuilt features for templates and others while it customization part is very easy.
- It comes with tools to protect it from injection and xss attacks and keeps all SQL codes in separate model files for easy coding.
CakePHP
There are plenty of reasons for choosing CakePHP framework for your business business website with innumerable advantages. The process of CakePHP development includes defining the requirements and straight heading on to development with many integral features and most sought after pre-defined functionalities. The CakePHP model layer is based on Arrays and allows for achieving same effects as others with minimal code writing.
Since lesser amount of writing codes makes way for more time for planning, testing and ensure better performance, it is loved among the developers community. Using CakePHP means that your application core is well testing and continuously improved.
A quick list of features that makes it enjoyable:
- A very active and friendly CakePHP community
- Compatibility with PHP versions 4 and 5
- CakePHP is believed to be a cost effective framework
- Comes with a very fast and flexible templating, that is, PHP syntaxes and helpers.
- CakePHP works from any website directory with no Apache configuration involvement
Symfony
A framework is absolutely not necessary for development. It’s the code that gets an application ready and running. Framework is used to make the process faster while ensuring greater efficiency. There are many PHP frameworks which people use according to their comfortability levels. Also Symfony is used by pretty large organizations, such as BBC.
Since a plenty of organization prefer Symfony, staying put with the framework ensures greater assistance and easy availability of resources. Although each framework has it’s own specifications and advantages, Symfony doesn’t stand anywhere behind!
Why choose Symfony?
- First of all Symfony enjoys a huge community of users and contributors where almost everyday some bundles are created.
- It eases Unit testing where you can mock objects, isolate classes and inject dependencies.
- Symfony is a testing-prone framework. It also allows for functional testing where it lets you simulate HTTP requests and examine the output.
- It allows unlimited flexibility. It’s a 3-in-1 framework where you have options for full stack development, brick by brick development and micro framework to be used as a standalone to develop a specific functionality in a particular project.
CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter is basically an application framework with toolkit for people to build web applications using PHP. It lets you develop a project much faster as it comes with a rich set of libraries for usually needed tasks. The interface is simple and logical and facilitates creative development.
It is an MVC architecture that lets developing complex applications in a procedural way. It also offers nice code separation and doesn’t let you create a mess. It works with both PHP 4 and 5 so comes in handy for all levels of PHP developers.
Some reasons you can’t ignore CodeIgniter:
- It allows easy and hassle-free migration from servers.
- CodeIgniter is really easy to learn and adopt to.
- Allows total flexibility in customization and addition of newer functionalities without disturbing any customization.
- The MVC architecture offers flexibility, easy management and provides easier configuration and customization of configuration files.
- This framework doesn’t need any installation neither does you are required to make any server modifications to get it up and running.
Zend
Zend is probably is the most overused among all other PHP frameworks. With more than 73 million installations till date. It’s used for complex web applications development using PHP 5.6 and provides object oriented code with a variety of language features. It offers an advanced Model View Controller implementation to set up a fundamental structure. Most importantly it creates a plenty of reusable codes which helps in further development.
Its internalization and localization component is one of the most important benefit that Zend comes with. The other benefits may be listed as follows:
- The framework is highly customizable and helps the developer in creating web applications with innumerable features. Its this flexibility that lets it being used so extensively all over.
- Zend developers can develop big data applications since everything is in the form of objects. Large scale enterprises, for their web applications mostly prefer it for this same reason.
- It is developed with HTML5 and hence helps in quick web page development that is lightweight and responsive. The HTML5 features are available from within the framework and supports inputs like email, url, phone number etc.
- Zend is supported by a large community of developers and contributors. Since it’s quite an old framework, there are plenty of resources available for it as well as it boasts of 100s of popular websites developed on it.
All the frameworks mentioned above are special in their own way and have their own advantages and disadvantages. It’s always best to consider a framework based on the requirements. You can always take help from professionals who have expertise in all of the frameworks mentioned so that they can suggest you your best fit.