Comparision of 5 most popular PHP Frameworks (Infographic)

List of Best 5 PHP Framework

1) Laravel

If you went through Google search trend chart, Laravel is the most popular PHP frameworks among PHP developers. It’s a good PHP framework with elegant syntax pattern.

Required skills – PHP and OOP knowledge

Current Version – 5.1.6

Stable Version – 4.1

Release Date – June 11, 2011

Required Modules – Open SSL, Mbstring, Tokenizer, PDO PHP

Licensed Under- MIT

Hierarchy – MVC

Minimum PHP Version needed – 5.5.9

Why should we use Laravel?

It has lots of inbuilt functionalities like authentication, file uploads etc.

• It also offers strong routing and caching features.
• It is integrated with unit testing support.
• It can be used for very large application or simple JSON-based APIs.
• Laravel supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, SQLite.
• Laravel comes with Composer and vendor packages installation is a charm.
• infographic_PHP-framework-comparision

2) Symfony Framework

Symfony is one of the most actively used frameworks that ships with a powerful ORM and excellent documentation.

Required skills – PHP 5, OOP , ORM, Console

Current Version – 2.7

Stable Version – 2.4.1

Release Date – 22nd October 2005

Required Modules – OpenSSL, Mbstring, Tokenizer, PDO PHP

Most Suited for – Intermediates / Experts

Licensed Under- MIT

Best For – Large Projects

Runs On – PHP 5.3

License – MIT

Ease of Learning – Difficult to learn – a steep learning curve

Speed – Bloated and Slow

Performance – 39.22 requests per second

Multiuser System – Conditional

Databases Supported – Microsoft BI, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, GraphDB, MemcacheDB, Apache Jackrabbit, MongoDB, NoSQL, CouchDB, GemFire, Membase, Oracle

Rigid Catalog Structure – Yes

Official Internalization Support – Yes

Design pattern – Dependency Injection, MVC, Observer, Data Mapper, Domain Driven Design, HMVC, Restful

Dependency Injection Container – Yes

Code Generators – CLI

Template Libraries – PHP, Twig

View System – Proper View System

Cache Storage – Yes

Complexity in Installation and Adjustment – High

Requires Additional Configuration and Settings – Significantly

Documentation and Samples – Comprehensive

Unit Tests for Source Code – Yes

Testing Library – PHPUnit

Security USPs – Authentication, Dynamic encoding of password, role-based and stateless authorization, access control lists

Community – Available

Why should we use Symfony?

• It’s a flexible, scalable yet powerful PHP framework.
• It has plenty of reusable PHP components that can be used like Security, Templating, Translation, Validator, Form Config and more.
• Reusable and decoupled components that can work together or independently.
• Highly performing, faster, and less greedy.
• The ultimate flexibility in terms of dependency control.
• Quickly and easily expandable.
• High-level ease of use.

3) CodeIgniter Framework

CodeIgniter is the second most popular web framework among PHP developers. It is a lightweight powerful PHP framework that provides a simple and elegant platform to create full-featured web applications.

Best For – Small, Medium or Large Project

Runs On – PHP 5.0

License – MIT

Required Skills – PHP, OOP basic

Ease of Learning – Easy to Learn

Speed – Agile, has a very small footprint

Performance – 187.78 requests per second

Multiuser System – Yes

Databases Supported – JDBC, OrientDB, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, Cubrid, MySQL, MongoDB, Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft BI, PostgreSQL

Rigid Catalog Structure – Yes

Official Internalization Support – Yes

Design pattern – Active Record, MVC, HMVC, Chain of Responsibility

Dependency Injection Container – No

Code Generators – Has many code generator console applications

Template Libraries – PHP simple template

View System – Does not offer in-built WYSIWYG editor

Cache Storage – Yes

Complexity in Installation and Adjustment – Low

Requires Additional Configuration and Settings – Slightly

Documentation and Samples – Excellent

Unit Tests for Source Code – No

Testing Library – PHPUnit

• Security USPs – Password encryption, message encoding/decoding, XSS filtering, output filtering, SQL injection, Session security, private controller methods
• Community – Active Forum, Wiki Tutorial, Blog
• Why should we use CodeIgniter?
• Best framework for Beginners as it is simply great and easier to learn
• Exceptionally High performance and broad compatibility delivered with standard hosting
• Zero configuration required to let the task easier for you
• Large scale monolithic libraries that let complexity break into simplicity
• Thorough maintenance
• Offers incredible control in comparison to other frameworks specially Yii.

4) Zend Framework

Zend is the one and only framework which is best suited for Enterprise Projects. No other framework can match up to its flexibility, scalability, and robustness.

Best For – Medium and Large Projects

Runs On – PHP 5.2

License – New BSD

Required Skills – Requires high knowledge of PHP5 and OOP, as well as awareness of design patterns

Ease of Learning – Academically literate code

Speed – Lightweight, easily customizable

Performance – 103.2 results per second

Databases Supported – Apache Derby, BM DB2, MSSQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite, DBeaver

Rigid Catalog Structure – No

Official Internalization Support – Yes

Design pattern – MVC, Dependency Injection, Adapter, Action Controller

Dependency Injection Container – Yes

Code Generators – CLI

Template Libraries – Possible to integrate most templates such as Smarty

View System – No WYSIWYG editor has to be added as a plug – in

Cache Storage – No

Complexity in Installation and Adjustment – High

Requires Additional Configuration and Settings – Significantly

Documentation and Samples – Comprehensive, Good

Unit Tests for Source Code – Yes

Testing Library – PHP Unit

• Security USPs – Authentication, input Validaiton and filtering, SQL security, CSRF protection, Session management security, XSS protection
• Community – Strong and Vibrant
• Why we should use Zend Framework?
• Agile Design methodology that focuses high-quality enterprise apps.
• World class Cloud support on servers.
• Inherently excellent streamlining and automation process that brings software from codes to production
• The most coolest Drag and Drop editor.
• Instant Online Debugging.
• Intuitively connected Database Wizard and Editable Table Viewer for exclusive database connectivity.
• Offers the most efficiently designed workflows.

5) Yii Framework

YiiFramework is the high-performance modern PHP framework. As its popularity in the chart, it attracts most of PHP developers due to its features like fast development, caching, authentication and role-based access control, scaffolding, testing, etc.

Best For – Any Project – small, medium or large

Runs On – PHP 5.4

License – New BSD

Required Skills – PHP5 and OOP

Ease of Learning – Easy to learn and manage, Time consuming

Speed – Fast

Performance – 123.5 Requests per second

Multiuser System – Conditional

Databases Supported – MySQL, SQLite, Microsoft BI, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MongoDB

Rigid Catalog Structure – No

Official Internalization Support – Yes

Design pattern – DAO, Active Record, MVC, HMVC, Observer

Dependency Injection Container – No

Code Generators – Yii CLI, Gii (web based)

Template Libraries – PHP, Prado, Others such as Razor, Smarty, Twig using extensions

View System – Decent View System – WYSIWYG editior

Cache Storage – Yes

Complexity in Installation and Adjustment – Average

Requires Additional Configuration and Settings – Slightly

Documentation and Samples – Excellent

Unit Tests for Source Code – Yes

Testing Library – PHP Unit, Selenium

Security USPs – Authentication and role – based access control, easy form validation

Community – Strong

Why should we use Yii Framework?

• Powerful Caching system that loads your web applications extremely fast.
• Security at its best with Yii.
• Provides excellent support for writing and running both unit tests and functionality tests.
• There is a detailed documentation for everything if you get stuck anywhere.
• Works fantastically well with 3rd party codes.
• Has a built-in authentication support that is facilitated via RBAC (Role Based Access Control).
• Well integrated with JQuery.
• Supports message translation, date and time formatting, number formatting, and interface localization.
• Offers professionally clean and reusable code that follows MVC pattern.
• Integrates best with both the relational and non-relational databases.