A good PHP framework should improve security, make websites easier to upgrade and should also dramatically reduce the time it takes you to build websites and web applications. After all, framework should dramatically decrease time needed for developing web application. A good PHP framework should help you to keep on top of everything that’s new and hip in the world of web development – without having to learn a bunch of brand new technologies. Need a PDF generator? Your framework should be able to handle that. How about an RSS feed? No problem! Or, how about one of those fancy auto complete features for a search form? Well, sure enough, there’s frameworks that can produce those too.
The big question that a lot of developers are asking these days is, “What is the best PHP framework?”
Well, that’s a question that’s virtually impossible to answer for two reasons. Firstly, we all (as developers) have different hopes and aspirations for our frameworks. For example, person A might be interested in improving development speed while person B might be more interested in having a framework with lots of advanced features. The second reason why “What’s the best PHP framework?” is virtually impossible to answer is because unless you’ve spent at least six months (in my opinion) really getting your hands dirty with a framework, then you don’t really know it. I dare say that there is not a single PHP developer on the planet who is intimately familiar with every major PHP framework. Therefore, there’s always going to be a bit of speculation when you hear somebody talking about what the best framework is. Sure, we can look at statistics (file size, load speed and so on) but statistics don’t really give us a sense of the feel of a framework.
Never the less, I am going to be brave enough to give you my thoughts. I have tried all of those and I am familiar with them. Maybe this will help some developer out there to make a more informed decision about which PHP framework to use. So, here’s my top five best PHP frameworks of 2011:
INFO:
If you look at the statistics, CakePHP is one of the slowest PHP frameworks out there. It’s also rather difficult to learn and has a somewhat cumbersome feel. I must confess that I have not spent much time working with CakePHP. However, the time that I did spend working with it was rather uninspiring. The form generation and validation methods, for example, seemed slower and more awkward to me then straight “out of the box” PHP methods, using OOP.
So, you may well ask, “Why has CakePHP made my top five?” The answer is simple. Community.
The CakePHP community is massive and vibrant. Check out the CakePHP “bakery” and you’ll find tonnes of web development goodies – enough to keep you going for a lifetime! Just about everything that I’ve ever wanted to build for a web application has already been built by someone from the Cake community. As far as I can tell, the CakePHP community is ahead of all other frameworks in this regard. So, for this reason alone Cake makes the top five.
PROS:
Massive, vibrant community
Tonnes of free downloadable sample code and applications
CONS:
Slow page loads
Difficult to learn
