Whether you are going to work on a new project or wanna improve the existing one using PHP, A PHP framework can make the development process much easier and faster by providing the structure. MVC pattern, security, less code & other faster development features will make every developer use the frameworks. But the availability of too many frameworks in PHP will always confuse the developer in choosing the right one for their project. If you are a beginner then the this could be quite more difficult. You should opt one of the frameworks based on different things like your expertise in PHP, your project requirements and many other things such as, whether the framework comes with good documentation, security, big community, libraries, support and databases they support. For beginners, it’s better to choose an easy to use framework instead of complex ones. From many years at Agira we have been using different PHP frameworks for different projects. Out of all the frameworks we have used, we filtered the following latest and popular PHP frameworks that worked well for us.

Laravel :

Laravel is the most popular web application framework among web developers. It is an open source framework introduced in 2011 by the developer Taylor Otwell. Within this short span, it gained huge popularity because of its features and powerful tools. The latest version of laravel is laravel5.5 and the key features of laravel include Databases migration system, Inbuilt templates, built-in command line tool Artisan, Eloquent ORM (object-relational mapping), Unit testing and more.

Symfony :

Symfony is a PHP framework developed by SensioLabs. Symfony is also an open source framework and the latest version of Symfony is Symfony3.3. Symfony comes with good documentation and being developed by SensioLabs it has a very big active community. In fact, SensioLabs also conducts training and certification programs helping you to master Symfony. (They are not free though.) Symfony comes with various powerful tools like code-generation tools for prototyping and it has a built-in unit and functional testing framework which allows test-driven development. The debugging is made easy with the debug panel. It also has a command-line interface, to automate the deployment.

CakePHP :

CakePHP can really make the web development a Cakewalk. It helps us to build the application faster and easier with less code. It offers a flexible database access layer and a powerful scaffolding system which makes the development process pretty easy. It also comes with wide range of built-in tools for securing the application. The list includes the tools for input validation, CSRF and XSS protection.

Codeigniter :

This is a simple PHP framework which can be easily used by beginners too.It is introduced in 2006 by EllisLab and widely popular for its simplicity and speed. Codeigniter is highly flexible, it even does not force on MVC. It also provides built-in CSRF and XSS protection.

Phalcon :

Phalcon is known for its speed. This also uses very less memory when compared to other frameworks. It is introduced in 2012 and written in c and C++. Though it is written in C, it is not necessary that we should have knowledge in C to use this framework. The key features of Placon include universal auto-loader, asset management, security, translation, caching, and many others. Phalcon may be complex for beginners.

Yii2 :

Yii is one of those high-performance PHP frameworks and is a good choice for building quality web-applications in rapid time. It also follows MVC pattern and provides good security features like input validation, output filtering, SQL injection and Cross-site scripting prevention.Yii is giving a tough competition to Symfony particularly. It also has a built-in integration with CodeCeption, for testing the application. Yii is giving tough competition to Symfony especially.

Zend framework :

Zend framework is also a popular framework among developers with over 158 million installations. It is object-oriented and best suits for building enterprise applications. This framework is basically a collection of professional PHP based packages. It is a Use-at-will architecture with loosely coupled components.

Many of you would have tried all these frameworks or some of them. Out of our personal experience at our company, we believe that using the above frameworks will definitely ease the development process. In the coming years these frameworks will have demand and learning them or having knowledge on all of them will definitely benefit you. And definitely, the list consists only some of the best, but there are many other frameworks which are very useful and may gain high popularity in coming years.

More articles from us on PHP frameworks, which shows the clear comparison between this frameworks.

Laravel Vs. Symfony – Should You Become a Laravel Developer or Symfony Developer? –

Reasons Why Symfony Finds an Edge Over Zend in Web Development Services

Symfony Development in India – Gaining Popularity Among Entrepreneurs