PHP is one of the most popular programming languages in the world, and the recent release of PHP7 has made this server-side programming language more powerful and stable than ever before.
PHP is widely used in large projects, such as Facebook, which uses PHP to build and maintain their internal systems. WordPress uses PHP as its core and accounts for 26% of web projects. 82% of Web sites currently use PHP as their server-side development language (web Tecnology Surveys)
In this article, we’ll take a look at three of the most popular PHP frameworks: Symfony, Laravel, and Yii. We help you choose a framework that best fits your needs by explaining how to compare them.
Why use the PHP framework?
What made us use frameworks instead of the pure PHP native language to develop our applications? Some of the benefits of using frameworks are as follows:
- The PHP framework makes the development process faster; for example, you don’t have to write complex queries to query data from a database. The PHP framework provides CRUD operations (create create, read read, Update, delete delete)
- Frameworks make it easier for developers to extend systems
- Simpler to maintain than normal PHP application code. The application code is much simpler and easier to use
- MVC model guarantees fast development
- The framework can better protect web applications against common security threats
- The Don’t Repeat Yourself principle ensures that the least amount of code gets the most bang for the buck
The advantages mentioned above are too significant to be ignored. Even native PHP can be used to develop any application, but current development specifications require tools and time-management skills to meet market needs.
How do I choose a PHP framework
Answering the following questions can help you choose the right framework for you:
- What are the features and functions of this framework? (Does it provide what I need?)
- Is this framework easy to learn?
- Is this framework extensible for line strength?
- Is the framework’s core team actively developing and maintaining it?
- Does the framework provide long-term support?
- Does the framework have strong community support?
Symfony, Laravel and Yii
Before getting into the technical details, let’s take a look at the three contenders as a whole
Symfony
Symfony is a set of reusable PHP components that enable developers to develop easily extensible and high-performance applications. With 30 components to choose from, developers have complete freedom to experiment and work in the RAD environment. Symfony’s APIs also make it easy to integrate with third-party applications, and it can be used with popular front-end frameworks such as AngularJs.
Many popular projects including Drupal and phpBB also use the Symfony framework. In fact, the most popular framework, Laravel, is based on Symfony.
Laravel
Laravel is widely used as a “framework for Web Artists”, providing an excellent community and earning the title of the most popular framework.
In May 2015 Laravel announced that Laravel5.1 would be available for 2 years of long-term support. Version 5.2 was released in November 2015. Many hosting providers provide Laravel support and provide hosting solutions for Laravel applications.
Yii
Qiang Xue launched the Yii framework in 2008. The Yii framework is safe, fast and provides excellent performance. Yii uses Composer as its PHP dependency management tool to help deal with different dependencies and their installation. Thanks to the use of lazy loading technology, the Yii framework is currently the fastest.
Another great feature of Yii is its integration with JQuery. This integration allows front-end developers to start embracing it, and it uses scaffolding to generate code, similar to Symfony. Yii also uses components to quickly develop applications.
How to compare them
All three frameworks work well for Web2.0 applications, but each serves a different purpose. Let’s take a look at their properties and their current state.
Template engines
The template engine simplifies the developer’s life and provides better functionality when writing front-end code. The template engine provides features such as automatic HTML code escaping and filtering, and filling in the gaps left by native PHP.
Symfony Twig template system
Twig is a modern templating system for PHP. Symfony takes advantage of Twig to allow developers to write cleaner, simpler code.
See the Twig website to learn more about Twig’s features
Laravel Blade templating system
Unlike other templating systems, Blade lets you use PHP code in your views. And Blade has almost no impact on application performance, because view files have the.blade.php extension. All the code in the view file is converted to native PHP at run time.
Yii Default template system
Yii doesn’t use any third-party template systems by default, but that doesn’t mean it lacks support for a template engine. The choice of template engine is up to the development team. Yii recommends using Twig and Smarty template engines. Since Symfony uses Twig, if you’ve used Symfony before, you might want to use Twig in your next Yii framework.
There is no clear winner here. All three frameworks use template engines to make front-end code easier to write and maintain. One small advantage of Yii is that it doesn’t have a templating system in advance.
Frame differences
Every framework is different. Symfony is committed to providing reusable components and providing the best modularity support. Symfony also uses models and controllers to develop Web applications, which may seem old-fashioned to new developers. But it works. Symfony is a good example of a modular framework. You can use Symfony’s 30 components in a modular way in your projects.
Yii framework uses MVC model (Symfony also provides SUPPORT for MVC)
Symfony can be used for rapid development and for complex projects. Even if there is debate about which framework is best for developing complex projects, Symfony shows superior complexity handling capabilities compared to other frameworks
Yii also uses components but is not as modular as Symfony. Laravel does not offer the aggressive modularity support of the other two frameworks.
If you are looking for a modular framework, go for Symfony. Otherwise, Laravel and Yii are good choices.
The installation
These three frameworks provide a number of installers. If you use Composer for installation packages, you will be pleased to find that all frameworks can be installed in Composer
For Symfony, Composer is even more critical. The idea of component processing can be better implemented by using the PHPComposer dependency manager.
There are other ways to install each framework. For example, you can install the framework using a simple archive approach.
Once installed, Yii provides you with a Web application and a basic template to work with. Symfony2 also provides a demo program to get started.
Laravel can also be easily installed in Composer by using the Composer create-project command or by using the Laravel installer. See the Laravel Installation Guide for details.
Rapid development of
From a company or customer perspective, it is important to get an application to market quickly to meet consumer needs and beat the competition. Symfony has a strong community behind it and stands out as a robust framework. Laravel is growing fast, but it has a long way to go before it can be considered a practical development option for PHP. On the other hand, if you don’t know any PHP frameworks and want to get started quickly, consider Laravel. Laravel has an easy learning curve and you’ll find many tutorials online to help you get started. Yii takes performance to a new level and provides code scaffolding for rapid code generation and development.
performance
The performance of any application depends only on whether it is a real-time application that uses critical data. How many Web applications depend on high performance? Not a lot, but the performance of the framework can play a key role in many projects.
Social networking is a prime example of real-time event applications. One of our star products, Jadson, built a mobile social network using Yii2, when we chose the best framework for writing high-performance applications. Yii stands out as the fastest PHP framework.
Laravel’s performance is a controversial issue. It’s the slowest, but does it matter? You’ll find online resources to speed up its performance, including GitHub’s guide to making your laravel app faster.
Database support
Symfony 2 provides better database support. You can use a set of databases, including NoSQL and DynamoDB. Yii and Laravel are equally useful in this regard, but they support fewer databases than Symfony. The databases supported by each framework are shown in Table 1.
Community and Resources
An important predictor of the persistence of open source frameworks is the strength of their communities. All three frameworks have stable, solid communities, and while Symfony’s community may be more mature, the community is evolving, making it difficult to predict the future dynamics of the community. Laravel stands out when it comes to learning materials and documentation, although Symfony and Yii aren’t far behind.
scalability
Frameworks are structures that can be extended through extensions or packages to improve their functionality and scope. When it comes to expansion, Laravel is the winner. Packalyst A library of Laravel extensions that provides over 9000 extensions. On the other hand, Yii and Symfony offer around 2800 extensions and 2830 packages respectively, while Laravel offers more than 3 extensions. Laravel seems to be the best framework for this.
The same
We have looked at the differences between frameworks. Now let’s look at the similarities:
- All three frameworks are full-stack PHP frameworks that provide functionality for building Web applications, from front-end code writing to back-end data fetching
- The project is open source and hosted on GitHub, making it easy for anyone to contribute their own code
- All frameworks are well documented and supported by a large community
- Both support Object Relationship Mapping (ORM). ORM is ideal for writing object-oriented code for applications.
- Are robust, secure and reliable enough to develop Web2.0 applications
Still confused? Perhaps these lists will help you narrow down your choices:
Symfony:
- Long term support versions are available
- With a number of features
- It is the most stable framework available
- A component-based framework that provides extensible modular functionality
- There is a strong community support and rich learning resources
Yii:
- Naturally with Ajax support
- Because it provides faster operation, it is the best choice for developing real-time applications
- Highly scalable
- Error handling power
- Good for developing Restful Web services
- There is a strong community support and rich learning resources
Laravel:
- The most popular frame
- Support for Composer management extension packs
- The unit tests are well done
- A number of extension packs are provided to extend the functionality of the framework
- There is a strong community support and rich learning resources
conclusion
In the competition between Symfony and Laravel and Yii, all three frameworks are excellent choices, providing developers with a full-stack development environment. For me, Laravel is a winner as an emerging star that shows no signs of stopping.
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