The 5 PHP Frameworks any Developer would love to work with

The 5 PHP Frameworks Any Developer Would Love To Work With

Is a Framework really necessary?

Every day, a new website gets created, with numerous features and applications in it. Building a website is a time consuming and tedious task, and if not organized and executed properly, it can create unnecessary issues and take a great deal of time to get completed.

It is not possible to write the code from scratch, each and every time, as it would be a waste of time and energy, and also sometimes, prone to mistakes. There are some lines of codes, which are the same for any development occurring. Frameworks are the ones which are pre-defined, set of codes, which help us in making the coding work easier and faster. These frameworks offer a base for development, and also help in maintaining uniformity in the code. This helps, in the future, to find out any mistakes, if present and modify it. Many frameworks, exist in the market and each has its own unique features, and mostly all of them are open source ones.

Frameworks That Programmers Love To Work With

Laravel

Laravel has become the talk of the town since its release in 2011, owing to its features, easy usage and user friendliness. It follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. Many social networking sites, content management systems and news sites are built using this framework. Some of its features are-

Handling complex web applications with additional security.
Reduces complexity related to authentication, routing, caching and queuing saving valuable time.
Contains powerful tools to build large high end applications.
Helps managing third party apps easily and can integrate with third party libraries like Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Its community is highly active with a large amount of people, which is useful to find any help is issue arises.
Works effortlessly on MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server, and SQLite etc
Has an inversion control container which helps in testing the program while isolating another component.
It consists of a unique feature known as Homestead Vagrant Box, a prepackaged development environment which makes the development process, quite convenient to work on

2. Symfony

Symfony was released in the year 2005, that is, before Laravel and is quite famous amongst developers owing to its various features and is the reason it still exists. The highlights of this framework are-

It consists of some unique features known as bundle and components. Bundles are a ready-made package of files like PHP files, stylesheets, JavaScript files that would be useful in implementing to a blog, shopping cart which reduces the cost of development and automatically time and energy. The developers can use them in other applications too. Components are the standalone libraries that can make a task easier and can be used independently from the framework.
This helps developers customize it as per their requirement or to work on other features also without affecting the architecture of the framework.
They are used by popular content management systems such as Drupal, OroCRM, Matomo (formerly PIWIk) and PHP Bulletin Board (PHPBB).
Consists of a well- defined, structured and updated documentation, helping the developers to understand anything easily.
There are various options to choose from like, Full stack version or brick by brick version, depending on the requirement whether to build a complex application with the required functionality.
It boasts of a very active community, hence finding help pertaining to any query is easier and faster.
It has many online tutorials, making it easier to understand and help in case doubt arises.

In short, it speeds up the development and also maintains the web application.

3. CodeIgniter

It is a lightweight framework which is perfectly suited and recommended for beginners.
This framework is the perfect choice when it comes to building lightweight applications as the installation size of it along with documentation is 2 MB.
It is well documented.
CodeIgniter has built-in libraries and security tools, database abstraction with an active community support, and further allows reusing libraries and functions.
It has the MVC (Model-View-Controller) approach and separates application logic from presentation that helps developers building templates.

4. CakePHP

It is one of the earliest PHP frameworks, which was released in the early 2000s and has still existed in the market due to its various features and the ability to update itself.

The framework is suited to commercial web applications as it is modern.
It has a simple configuration which makes it easy to install and quick to work.
The features like SQL injection prevention, cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection, cross-site scripting (XSS) prevention have helped this framework stay in the market for such a long time.
It has good and organised documentation which makes the work easier for the developers.
This framework also provides facilities pertaining to caching, authentication and form validation.

5. Zend

A user friendly framework with a functionality of drag and drop editor on one hand, but one of the most difficult ones to learn, is what Zend is. It is built based on object oriented keeping a track of security features along with performance and scalability.

It has a well - connected database with online debugging tools which helps it make easy to work on complicated websites.
It is popularly known as the ‘glue’ network as it is a component based.
Zend service is a unique feature which allows to implement client libraries and access the popular web services.
As it is object oriented, it allows to reuse most of the codes, which is beneficial.
The documentation is also a great feature which is helpful.
It offers a variety of configuration options, but for the developers who have worked earlier with Laravel, it is a bit difficult

Which framework should you select?

The above is a list of some of the popular frameworks in the market presently. But there are other ones also, which are used by developers. Every framework has its own specialty and it depends on the type of web application and the developer’s selection.

PHP frameworks are designed to simplify the development process and reduce the work required in creating wonderful applications.

Conclusion

Every framework in and out of this list will have its own set of features along with a list of weaknesses, and they all vary regarding documentation and community support, along with official support from the creator. Therefore, the decision of the best framework will depend on the requirements of the project you are working on and your prerequisites on factors such as security, scalability, ease of use and more. So before you choose a framework, understand your requirements. Then only you are ready and can dive straight in.

Read Also.....

Food insecurity: an appetite for change

Regardless of age, gender or country of origin, we all need food to survive. Yet, globally, 820 million people are going hungry......

Building MVP with no technical team

IT Projects are here to stay. With the development in the sector, people are now finding various cost-effective ways to make their work.......

Focus on Health Equity: A Call to Action

Health equity is a simple concept, but it is difficult to achieve. As racism is pervasive throughout industries and institutions so the Health equity is no difference......