Top 7 PHP Web Development Frameworks

PHP is known as the most popular server-side scripting language that is used for building simple to complex websites to web apps. There are different PHP frameworks available to provide developers with the right solution for developing the websites and web applications.

Why do developers use a PHP framework?

Looking at the modern web development needs, developers need speedy development along with well organized and reusable code. PHP frameworks provide ready to use components, offer proven architecture and MVC pattern to make the website development more productive. Using frameworks speeds up the development process and offers great security of your website. It is important to choose the right PHP framework depending on your requirements and business objectives.

1. Laravel

Laravel is undoubtedly the king of PHP frameworks that is widely used for building large scale web applications. Laravel has a huge community of developers and several free tutorials are available for this framework to guide the developers to create the best solutions.

It is simple and easy to learn and also supports rapid app development. It is capable of bringing any large scale project to life within a few days. It is popular because of its brilliant features. Most of the developers consider Laravel as the best PHP framework for eCommerce website development.

Laravel has its own temple engine called “Blade” and the best thing about it is that it allows the users to write plain PHP. This popular framework comes with built-in programming environment Homestead, that is built on Vagrant.

2. Symfony

Do you need help with a very complex and large scale project? Symfony can be the right choice for this. Symfony consists of a whole set of reusable components and an active community that takes PHP to a new level.

Being scalable, it has a set of reusable PHP components for website development. The reusable libraries in Symfony are used for completing various tasks such as authentication, form creation, routing, object configuration, and many more. The websites and applications developed using Symfony framework have a showcase section that is quite interesting. Symfony 2 framework is built over existing components of Symfony such as Drupal, phpBB, and eZ Publish.

3. CodeIgniter

Being a lightweight PHP framework, it is known for its straightforward installation process that needs minimal configuration. It helps the developers save a lot of hassle. It can be the right option if the user wants to avoid PHP version conflicts because it works well on almost all the shared and dedicated hosting platforms.

Some of the common features that make CodeIgniter popular are: no large scale monolithic libraries, nearly zero configuration, no restrictive coding rules, no requirement for template language, and many more.

This PHP framework is not strictly based on the MVC development pattern. It requires using Controller classes, but Models and Views are optional. The users can use their own coding and naming conventions. It is known to be a very lean framework that allows the developers to add third-party plugins if complicated features and functionalities are required.

4. Yii

Being one of the oldest PHP frameworks, Yii is the preferred choice for enterprise grade website application development. It is considered to be a fast, secure, and professional PHP framework for building high-performance Web 2.0 applications. It can be the ideal choice for creating social networking websites as it decreases the development time substantially.

Yii 2.0 is a modern PHP framework that comes with a complete set of features to meet the requirements of modern websites and application development. It is a lightweight PHP framework that is popular for its easy installation and allows faster app development and testing.

Yii 2 has a very active and supportive community to take Yii 2 framework to the next level. It is object-oriented and faster than other PHP frameworks. As Yii is integrated with jQuery, and it comes with a set of AJAX-enabled features, it is widely used by someone who comes from a frontend background.

5. CakePHP

Another giant from the old times is CakePHP. It is still the most popular PHP framework for building web apps that require high level security. CakePHP comes with built-in security features such as input validation, SQL injection prevention, and many more.

Did you know that brands like Hyundai, Express, and BMW use CakePHP? The latest version CakePHP 3.0 shows improved management of sessions and expanded possibility of developing a larger number of individual libraries.

6. Zend

Zend is a stable and robust PHP framework that is a preferred choice for developing complex projects. Having partners such as Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Adobe, Zend comes with a lot of features like cryptographic coding tools, drag and drop editor, and instant online debugging tool.

This PHP framework was created with the Agile methodology to facilitate delivery of top quality apps to enterprises. Being an object-oriented style programming language, it uses the latest PHP innovations. It is exclusively designed to be less dependent on other components. Zend provides a reliable and high performance MV and easy to use database abstraction for development of web apps.

7. Phalcon

Phalcon is one of the fastest PHP frameworks available in today’s times. As it is written in C and C++, it consumes lower resources. The developers do not need the knowledge of C language for the Phalcon framework.

Being released in 2012, it gained popularity among the PHP developers. The main reason why Phalcon became so popular today is that this framework has reduced resource usage and ensures higher execution speeds. It is packed with some cool features that include universal auto-loader, security, caching, asset management, translation, and many more.

The Bottom Line

PHP frameworks have been around since decades and are considered to be a preferred choice of developers for developing complex web applications. They have been changing the way websites are developed. Developers use PHP frameworks for large scale open source projects as well as enterprise CMS and CRM systems.

Different frameworks come with different concepts and methodologies. Hence, the developers should choose the right framework to meet the PHP application development requirements of today.

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