INFO:

Statistically speaking, Yii is without doubt the best framework on the market (at least, at the time of writing). It gives lightning fast page loads and has more features than you could shake a stick at. Yii is a relatively new kid on the block, as far as frameworks go. The main thing that sends Yii straight to the top spot, for me, is the sense that Yii represents the next generation of frameworks. In other words, it’s not just a bit faster than Codeigniter or a bit more feature packed than Zend. With Yii we have a genuine attempt, I think, to radically improve and change the way people use PHP frameworks.

If you’ve tried building websites with or without frameworks for more than six months then you’ll have noticed that you spend a lot of time doing the same things over and over again. For example, building authentication systems or top navigation bars. The makers of Yii appear to have spotted some of those areas and discovered brave new ways to negate them. For example, from the moment you install Yii, you get a perfectly functional and rather impressive website up and running – all automatically.  Yii also comes with a range of wizards for common tasks like CRUDing (creating, reading, updating and deleting) which will leave you wondering “Why didn’t any of the other framework makers think of this?”

Critics of Yii will tell you that it’s difficult to learn and too strict. However, Yii has a nuclear bomb under its’ sleeve to tackle that objection – a guy called Larry Ullman. Larry Ullman is one of the world’s best selling PHP authors. He has written extensively on the subject of PHP and is famous (or, perhaps I should say “highly regarded”) for making difficult web development concepts easy to understand. Within the past year, Larry has been extremely active within the realms of the Yii website. He appears to have fallen in love with the Yii framework and has written a fantastic series of articles which are all very clear and easy to follow.

Unfortunately there is, never the less, a shortage of books and documentation on the subject of Yii. However, that may change in the future.

Personally speaking, I don’t use Yii in my day to day job. The reason for this is because I don’t have time to spend three to six months learning all the ins and outs of a new framework. Perhaps that will change in the future. In any event, I have spent some time playing around with Yii and based on what I’ve observed I can definitely say that, if I was starting from scratch, I’d choose Yii before any other framework.

PROS:

The fastest loading of all the major frameworks
Automatic generation of base code

CONS:

Being a relatively new framework means lack of books and tutorials
Less employment opportunities than other leading frameworks