Aside from knowing how to code as a web developer, you also need the right tools. This is where frameworks come in. PHP is one of the most popular programming languages for web development, and many developers rely on PHP frameworks for efficient and high-quality web development.
But with so many different frameworks available, which ones should you choose?
Here, we’ve rounded up the five best PHP frameworks for efficient and high-quality web development. Each framework offers unique benefits and features that make it stand out.
Key Highlights
- PHP frameworks comprise a set of libraries and tools that assist developers in building web applications with enhanced speed and efficiency by offering pre-written code and standardized practices
- By employing a PHP framework, developers can benefit from time-saving, increased efficiency, better performance, security, and maintainability for their application
- When selecting a PHP framework, it is crucial to take into account various factors such as project requirements, team skill level, community support, security features, scalability, and third-party integration capabilities
- Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter, and CakePHP are among the most popular PHP frameworks that developers prefer to work with
- Although learning a PHP framework may take some effort, developers can avail themselves of the documentation and tutorials provided by many frameworks to aid them in getting started
What Is a PHP Framework?
A PHP framework is a set of tools and components allowing developers to create powerful and complex web applications quickly. It provides an organized structure for code organization, model-view-controller (MVC) design patterns, libraries, and functions that help speed development.
PHP frameworks provide a way to organize and manage the code and make it easier to maintain and reuse code while ensuring that all parts of the application work together. It also helps developers create more secure applications by providing a framework for authentication and authorization protocols.
What Are the Advantages of Using PHP Frameworks in Web Development?
PHP is a popular programming language used for web development, and several PHP frameworks are available to developers to help streamline the development process. Here are some of the advantages of using PHP frameworks in web development:
1. Faster Development
PHP frameworks provide a pre-built structure for web development, which can significantly reduce development time. Developers can use pre-built components and libraries, eliminating the need to write code from scratch.
2. Code Reusability
PHP frameworks allow developers to reuse code, which makes the development process more efficient. This also means that code can be maintained and updated more efficiently, as it is centralized within the framework.
3. Consistency
PHP frameworks ensure consistency in coding standards and conventions across the entire project. This makes it easier for developers to work together and for new developers to join the project.
4. Security
Most PHP frameworks have built-in security features that help protect against common web vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting. This can save developers time and effort when implementing security measures.
5. Scalability
PHP frameworks are designed to handle large-scale projects, making them ideal for complex web applications. Frameworks provide the necessary structure and organization to scale a project up or down as needed.
6. Community Support
PHP frameworks have large and active communities of developers who contribute to the development and improvement of the framework. This means developers can access a wealth of resources, documentation, and support when working with a PHP framework.
PHP Framework: Laravel
Laravel, tagged as the PHP framework for web artisans, is a popular open-source web application framework designed to make development for the web smooth and hassle-free. It offers rich features to ease everyday tasks encountered in most web projects, such as routing, authentication, caching, etc.
Key Features
1. Eloquent ORM
Laravel’s Eloquent ORM is one of its key features. It offers a compelling and efficient way to interact with your database, simplifying basic tasks such as retrieving records from the database table, inserting new ones, updating existing entries, and deleting entries.
With Eloquent’s object-relational mapper, you can manipulate your database with a beautiful and expressive syntax that is very intuitive.
2. Authentication and Authorization
Laravel offers a simple, secure way to authenticate users and protect application resources. This authentication is managed through sessions, meaning that after successful authentication, the user remains logged in until they log out or their session expires.
Laravel Sanctum enables token-based user authentication for APIs and mobile apps, ensuring only authorized users can access app resources.
3. Artisan Command-Line Interface
Artisan is the command-line interface bundled with Laravel, a popular PHP framework for web development. This tool offers developers a wide range of useful commands during application development. Artisan is built on top of the robust Symfony Console component, which provides a powerful and flexible foundation for command-line interfaces.
4. Blade Templating Engine
The Blade is a powerful templating engine that allows developers to create high-quality web applications more quickly. It provides an intuitive syntax and intelligent automatic escaping of HTML, making web development more secure and efficient. With Blade, developers can create sophisticated views with a minimum of code.
Pros
- Easy to learn and use
- The robust feature set, including authentication and authorization, caching, and more
- Thriving ecosystem with many packages and libraries
- A wide selection of libraries and packages at your disposal
- Modularity for easy code reuse
Cons
- Laravel is a complex framework and can be challenging to learn for beginners
- Laravel’s reliance on libraries and abstractions may not make it the best choice for high-performance applications
- Support is not readily available
Popular Websites That Use Laravel
PHP Framework: Symfony
Symfony is an open-source PHP web application framework and reusable PHP components/libraries. It is the foundation for some of the most popular web applications, such as Drupal and PrestaShop.
Symfony is designed to be fast, flexible, scalable, and extensible. It allows developers to develop modern, high-quality applications faster than ever before.
The Symfony framework is built on top of the Symfony Components collection. These components are a set of decoupled and reusable libraries which you can use to develop robust applications quickly.
Key Features
1. Bundles
A bundle is similar to a plugin in other software but even better. The core features of Symfony
Bundles are Symfony’s equivalent of plugins, allowing developers to add additional features to their applications quickly. You can use them to package and distribute Symfony-based applications and provide a means for third-party developers to extend the functionality of existing applications.
2. Twig Templating Engine
Twig is a template engine used by Symfony. It combines the power of PHP code with the simplicity of plain text templates to create even more complex applications. The Twig templating engine offers several advantages over traditional PHP code, including optimized performance, sandboxing of untrusted template code, and a powerful lexer and parser, allowing developers to define their custom tags, filters, and DSL.
3. Doctrine ORM
One of Symfony’s most popular components is Doctrine, an Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) tool that allows developers to work with databases using object-oriented programming.
Doctrine ORM is a part of the Doctrine project and is used to map database tables to PHP objects. It provides a simple and efficient way to interact with databases and reduces the repetitive code developers need to write.
4. Testing Tools
Testing is a critical aspect of software development, and Symfony offers a range of testing tools that enable developers to write and execute automated tests for their applications. Some of the leading testing tools that Symfony provides include PHPUnit, Behat, and PHPspec. PHPUnit is a unit testing framework for PHP that allows developers to write automated tests for their projects.
Pros
- Symfony is one of the most robust frameworks available, with a solid architecture that makes it easy to create complex web applications
- It has an extensive library of components and bundles that you can use to develop powerful applications quickly
- Symfony is well-documented, making it easier for developers to learn and use
Cons
- The default database ORM, Doctrine, has a steep learning curve for optimizing high-traffic scenarios and lacks comprehensive documentation
- Its heavy reliance on external dependencies can lead to strict architecture requirements for custom modules and extensive testing that can significantly slow development
Popular Websites That Use Symfony
PHP Framework: CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter is a PHP-based Application Development Framework designed to simplify and accelerate web development projects. It offers a rich set of libraries for everyday tasks and provides a straightforward interface and logical structure to access them.
By minimizing the amount of code needed for a given job, developers can focus more on the creative aspects of their projects. CodeIgniter’s flexible architecture enables developers to work. However, they prefer, without being constrained to a specific workflow.
Key Features
1. Lightweight
CodeIgniter is known for its lightweight framework that is fast, reliable, and easy to implement. The core system requires only a few small libraries that can be loaded dynamically based on the user’s needs. This makes it one of the most efficient frameworks available, resulting in superior performance compared to similar frameworks.
2. MVC Architecture
MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture is a coding pattern used in CodeIgniter to separate the logic and presentation of code. The MVC approach helps keep code organized and allows designers to work on template files without worrying about complicated programming tasks.
3. Security Features
CodeIgniter has various security measures, including input validation and encryption, which can effectively safeguard against potential attacks. By incorporating these features, you can establish a secure environment for your application that adheres to industry standards for security.
4. Flexibility
CodeIgniter is tailored to suit various projects and usage scenarios. This aspect can make it an ideal choice for developers who require versatility and flexibility in their development strategy.
5. Community Support
CodeIgniter boasts a thriving and engaged community of developers who contribute to the framework and offer assistance to its users. This aspect can guarantee that the framework is constantly updated and that developers can leverage the resources and knowledge available when required.
Pros
- Quick setup of MVC structure
- An excellent option for routing
- Well-managed documentation
- Effortless directory navigation via simple config file updates, even after relocating core folders
Cons
- It’s minimalistic source code, requiring developers to add necessary packages manually
Popular Websites That Use CodeIgniter
PHP Framework: CakePHP
CakePHP is a popular open-source web application framework that follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern. It is written in PHP, a server-side scripting language, and is designed to make web application development faster and easier.
CakePHP provides a range of features and tools that help developers to build robust and scalable applications, including built-in security features, easy database integration, code generation, and scaffolding. It also supports a range of databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server.
Key Features
1. MVC Architecture
Utilizing the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern in CakePHP enables the code to be structured and divided into distinct concerns, making it more manageable to maintain and adjust as the application progresses.
2. Bake Code Generation
CakePHP’s Bake console is a great tool to help quickly get an application up and running. With just a few simple commands, Bake can create models, views, and controllers for your project - no coding required! In addition, Bake can generate a fully functional application in minutes.
This is a handy feature for those new to CakePHP and needing help getting started.
3. Database Access
CakePHP offers a potent and adaptable database access layer, which aids developers in crafting optimized database queries and simplifying data management. Including this feature can lead to enhancements in the application’s performance.
4. Authentication and Authorization
Authentication and authorization are critical features in CakePHP. The AuthComponent provides a pluggable way to identify, authenticate and authorize users. This component allows developers to combine authentication and authorization objects to create flexible ways of identifying and checking user authorization.
5. Large Community support
CakePHP benefits from a vast and dynamic community of developers who contribute to the advancement of the framework and offer assistance to its users.
Pros
- CakePHP enables the creation of reusable code components that can be utilized across multiple projects
- CakePHP’s built-in features and security tools reduce the risks of common web vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks
- Extensive support for CLI-based utilities, allowing developers to handle background tasks/jobs outside of the HTTP request-response cycle using console applications that can reuse existing application classes from the web app, adding to its native extensibility
Cons
- Users encountered challenges when upgrading from version 2 to version 3 of CakePHP due to the platform’s decision to prioritize speed over backward compatibility. Consequently, developers need help to simply switch to the updated version. However, they can directly develop applications in CakePHP 3, which has new features.
Popular Websites That Use CakePHP
PHP Framework: Zend Framework/Laminas Project
The Zend Framework, now known as the Laminas Project, is an open-source, object-oriented web application framework for PHP 5.6+. It simplifies the development of high-quality web applications and services through core features and numerous components that save time and effort.
Zend Framework follows the Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. It adheres to PHP-FIG standards, enabling easy extension of applications with custom components and integration of existing packages from other frameworks.
Additionally, it implements PSR-7 for HTTP message interfaces, facilitating integration with external systems.
Key Features
1. Modular Architecture
With Zend Framework’s modular architecture, developers can selectively use only the necessary components. This functionality could enhance performance and decrease the application’s overall size.
2. Object-Oriented Design
The design of Zend Framework incorporates contemporary object-oriented principles and patterns, rendering it effortless to customize and extend. This capability enables developers to write organized, optimized, and manageable code.
3. Support for PHP 7
Zend Framework fully supports PHP 7, including its scalar-type hints and return-type declarations. This compatibility has the potential to increase the application’s performance and dependability.
4. Components
Zend Framework offers extensive pre-built components, encompassing tasks such as database access, authentication, and caching. This capability enables developers to save time and minimize the custom code they need to create.
Pros
- Zend Framework offers web application features such as consoles, local storage, and user configuration options, which enhance its flexibility and attractiveness
- The performance of an application is not affected by the number or type of dependencies it has when using the Zend framework
- The Zend framework, developed with HTML5, allows web designers to create lightweight and elegant web pages quickly
Cons
- Zend framework can be complex and challenging to learn for beginners, which could slow down development and increase the risk of errors
- While Zend Framework has extensive documentation, navigating and finding the information you need can be difficult, and some areas may need to be better documented
Popular Websites That Use ZendFramework
Factors to Consider: Which PHP framework Is Right for Your Project?
When deciding which PHP framework is suitable for your project, there are a few key factors to consider. Here are some of the most important ones:
1. Project Requirements
What features do you need? What type of web application are you building? Some frameworks are better suited for certain types of projects.
2. Community Support
The community’s size and active participation around a framework are critical factors in selecting a PHP framework. Frameworks with active and engaged communities are more likely to have frequent updates, bug fixes, and a wealth of documentation and tutorials available.
3. Performance
The performance of your web application can make or break the success of your project. You should consider a framework that is optimized for speed and resource efficiency.
4. Scalability
Will your project grow in the future? Will it need to handle more users, more requests, or more data? If so, you should select a framework designed to scale with your needs.
5. Security
The security of your web application is critical. You should choose a framework with built-in security features such as input validation, XSS protection, and CSRF protection.
6. Ease of Use
Consider how easy it is to use a particular framework. Some frameworks have a steep learning curve and require a lot of configuration, while others are more intuitive and easy to use out of the box.
Conclusion
In conclusion, PHP is a powerful web development language, and many frameworks are available to help developers build robust and high-quality websites quickly. Each framework offers unique features and strengths, making it essential for developers to research their options to choose the right one for their project.
Using one of the best PHP frameworks, developers can use enhanced security measures and improved scalability to create reliable and professional web applications.
Next Steps: What Now?
- Choosing a reliable web hosting service is essential for your website’s success. Look for features like 24/7 customer support, unlimited bandwidth, and robust security measures
- If you’ve decided on Laravel, read to learn how to install, use and uninstall it on Ubuntu 18.04 with Apache
- Consider whether WordPress is a better option than coding in PHP.
