The Most Popular PHP Frameworks for web development 2022

As we know PHP is the most popular and effective scripting language which is used for building small, medium, and large-scale websites and web applications worldwide. Multiple frameworks have been developed by PHP developers or PHP community developers due to their popularity and usability in the server-side programming language for building robust, secure, and efficient applications, rapidly.

What is PHP Framework?

In common words, the PHP Framework is a group or library of the PHP classes and functions for a repetitive or common task or work. We do not need to write the code every time and in each project from scratch if we use the PHP framework.

Why we should use PHP Framework?

There are various benefits to using the PHP Framework for building the web application either for personal or commercial use as follows-

• Superfast web development process -

  The development time is reduced manyfold due to the use of PHP frameworks as it provides inbuilt libraries and tools. We only need to call or import in the web application instead of writing it. There are many frameworks that provide tools for instant code generation of the application skeleton or scaffolding.
  
  

• Application Testing for bug-free application development -

  It uses the PHPUnit testing tool for providing an error-free application by using simple testing techniques.
  
  

• Impressive Coding architecture -

  Most the PHP framework uses the MVC designs pattern for best practices in coding and application structure and organization
  
  

• Building the Secure application -

  It provides secure application development techniques e. g. – data sanitization, etc. and protects from different types of cyber threats and attacks e. g. - XSS(cross-site-scripting), SQL injection etc.
  
  

Best PHP frameworks -

Here is the list of best PHP frameworks that are based on popularity and capability of super-fast application development. They are all having advantages and disadvantages as per application demand and requirement -

1. Laravel

   Laravel is the most popular PHP framework due to its robust, easy, elegant syntax and secure interfaces. It has been launched in 2011 by Taylor Otwell.

   It provides easy installation interfaces. You can install the Laravel easily using the "Laravel Homestead" which acts as a virtual machine and provides a full development environment without installing PHP and other related software.

   If you are preparing and looking for a career in Laravel, please read and collect the interview questions from Laravel interview questions and answers for getting your dream job.

   The Laravel provides an inbuilt CLI(command-line tool) known as “Artisan CLI” which boosts the development workflow and automates the common and repetitive tasks for a quick and easy development process e. g. - publishing package assets, managing database migrations, etc.

   It is at the top of the chart in the PHP framework list after launch due to full of features like - authentication, authorization, encryption, password hashing, database abstraction layer, data migration, routing, MVC design pattern, pre-programmed packages, multiple file system, task scheduling, integrated unit testing environment, inbuilt template engine and many more. These features are very helpful and useful for building large and complex web applications with easy and seamlessly.

   The Laravel is a very secure PHP framework. It provides a secure and protective layer to the web application from several web attacks and threats (e.g. SQL injection) by using an inbuilt CSRF token, hashed passwords feature, etc.

   The big companies names that use Laravel are - BBC, 9GAG, Pfizer, TourRadar, Crowdcube, etc.

2. PHP framework CodeIgniter -

   CodeIgniter is simple, easy, lightweight(about 2 MB in size with documentation), and a well-documented PHP framework.

   Codeigniter is comparatively faster than other PHP frameworks. It provides well-illustrated and detailed documentation for developers which it is very suitable for beginners.

   It is most suitable for building dynamic and full-featured websites and web applications. It provided pre-programmed many modules that boost the application development process.

   Codeigniter is comparatively faster than other PHP frameworks. It provides well-illustrated and detailed documentation for developers, due to which is very suitable for beginners. The installation and setup are also very easy in CodeIgniter compared to other frameworks.

   It is very flexible in coding structure. It encourages the use of MVC designs pattern but also provides the ability to code using other architecture.

   Codeigniter uses strong security interfaces by using inbuilt protection layer against CSRF and XSS threats and attacks. It also has the ability to defend against context[1]sensitive escaping and a Content Security Policy.

   It is used by many companies and firms, a few of them are - Adobe, Udemy, Medical Guardian, QuinStreet, etc.

3. Symfony -

   Symfony is a free open source PHP framework first released in October 2005 under the MIT license with a set of reusable PHP components or libraries.

   The latest stable release version of Symfony is 6.0.8 (November 2021) which has the latest features and functionality and is recommended for most users. It requires PHP 8.0.2 or the upper version. In addition to this, it has also a long-term support release version which is 5.4.8(November 2021) and requires PHP 7.2.5 or higher. It does not include the latest features and is harder to upgrade to a newer version.

   Symfony is mainly inspired by Ruby on Rails, Django, and Spring web application frameworks. Symfony is a flexible and powerful framework that provides code reusability and easy maintenance. It is a perfect choice among frameworks to develop large-scale enterprise projects. It is very simple to set up and configure.

   It is a secure framework and prevents web attacks and SQL injection. It uses PHPUnit for testing the application. It is based on Twig templating engine which is a very fast and simple template engine. It uses Swift Mailer as an email library.

   It is based on MVC(model-view-controller) architecture and a high-performance PHP framework.

   Symfony components are being used by a lot of open source projects like - Composer, Drupal 8, phpBB, Laravel, Silex, etc.

   Symfony has a huge and passionate community.

4. Laminas -

   Laminas Project is a free open-source PHP framework. It is an object-oriented web application implemented in PHP 7. It is released under the different terms of the BSD License.

   Laminas are formerly known as Zend Framework. Migration to Laminas is strongly recommended, as Zend is no longer updated. It has been launched in March 2006 and its current version is Zend 3.0.0 or Laminas 1.3.0. It requires PHP 5.6 or upper version for Zend and PHP7.3 and upper version for Laminas.

   It is based on MVC architecture and has enterprise-ready PHP components. It is installed officially via Composer package manager. Laminas Project is a collection of packages - more than sixty, which can be installed by using the composer easily. Symfony is an excellent choice for web applications that need to be scalable. Symfony is highly flexible and allows for integration with other vendor libraries.

   The Laminas Project consists of three parts: Laminas Components and MVC, Mezzo, and Laminas API Tools. It supports databases like MariaDB, MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and Informix Dynamic Server. It has a flexible caching sub-system with support for many types of backends, such as memory or a file system. You can create or build beautiful and high-quality RESTful APIs easily. We can easily test the framework because PHPUnit is integrated with Zend.

   It has a large community base, and it is well-documented. The Laminas community has a forum and Slack group for collaboration and support.

5. Yii -

   The Yii is a next-generation, efficient, and secure PHP framework that is based on components. Yii stands for "Yes, It Is!". In the Chinese language, Yii means - “simple and evolutionary”

   Yii has been launched in December 2008. The current stable release of Yii is 2.0.45. Yii is released under the fixed terms of the BSD License.

   Yii 2.0 requires PHP 5.4.0 or above and works(recommended) best with the latest version of PHP 7. It uses and supports SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, or Oracle databases. Yii applications use the Model View Controller(MVC) approach for organizing the whole application. You can install Yii using the "Yii2 installation using composure method" help article.

   In Yii, you can start, run and launch the application quickly in minutes. The Yii guide and documentation is well written and provide an easy learning process for different aspects of the Yii framework. It provides many inbuilt ready-made codes or features e.g. - Gii code generator, query builders and ActiveRecord, RESTful API development support, multi-tier caching support, etc.

   The Yii is very extensible for customization and code management and supports running third-party code within the Yii application. The Yii maintains strong security measures for example - bcrypt password hashing, encryption, authentication, preventing SQL injection, XSS, and CSRF attacks.

   It uses different types of a strong and efficient way of caching technology to speed up application performance e. g. – HTTP, data, fragment, page caching.

   Yii framework has a huge active and passionate community. There are multiple mediums available for the Yii framework community e.g. - forum, Facebook group, hall of fame, badges, etc. For live chat - the Yii community offers instant help or support either via Slack or IRC channel.

   It can be used for developing different types of web application that uses PHP as a scripting language. It is very suitable for developing large-scale applications - e. g. web portals, content management systems(CMS), blogs, forums, e-commerce web projects, RESTful web services, etc.

Source: infotokri