Pain of programming

Writing those lengthy codes and finding the fatal errors can be horrifying for anybody. Thankfully, we have the frameworks for every level of programmer. Framework not only reduces the pain of writing long codes, but also helps identifying and minimisin

g the common errors one can make while developing the site. There are various frameworks for PHP, hence we decided to write an article on most famous and commonly used frameworks in PHP so that you can decide which one to choose for your Industrial training.

What is a framework?

A PHP framework is a basic platform that is designed to support web applications development that includes web resources, web services, and web APIs. Web frameworks provide the standard way to build web applications and you can also build applications rapidly. The Best PHP framework for 2018 should require the following elements:

• Efficiency
• Server side scripting codes that can be used on  all operating systems
• Password protected for security
• Can be implemented on either CGI / CLI 
• Most preferred by other programmers in previous years
• Are already currently and widely used
• Enables a wide range of features
• Contains easy codes and saves time
• Easy to learn

Advantages of using frameworks

• Security features such as Output encoding and Input filtering
• Rapid development using the tools and libraries that provided by the framework
• Security features such as Output encoding and Input filtering
• Easy to maintain and upgrade the developed applications
• Excellent community

There are a variety of PHP frameworks and most of them are open source. Nowadays, popular PHP frameworks are Laravel, Phalcon, Symfony, Zend, CakePHP and CodeIgniter. There is no doubt that frameworks have just got better, bigger and a very handy tool for developers to build standard applications effortlessly. Let’s discuss a bit about them one by one. 

1. Laravel PHP Framework

Release Date:June 9, 2011

Popular Versions: 5.1 ,5.5

Latest Version: 5.6  (7 Feb 2018)

PHP Version Required: 5.5.9

Laravel is a most popular preferred and favored PHP web application framework among developers. It provides powerful tools which are required to build accessible and large robust applications with an inversion control container, expressive migration system, and tightly integrated unit testing support. It also makes rapid application development possible. It is expressive, elegant syntax, authentication, routing, sessions and caching. You can work on MySQL, SQLite, Postgresql Server, JSON APIs, and manage all third party packages of applications. It is perfectly suits  all sizes and types of projects. Laravel has lightweight templating engine known as “Blade”, elegant syntax that facilitates tasks frequently wants to do, such as sessions, authentication, caching, queueing and restful routing. Laravel framework has a huge ecosystem with deployment platform.

2. Phalcon – A Full Stack Framework

Release Date: November 14, 2012

PHP Version Required: Phalcon 3.0.0 ( 29 July 2016) support for PHP 7

The Phalcon is relatively new to the marketplace and it’s fat as a falcon because it’s a full Stack PHP framework that is implemented as a C extension. It offers very high performance with regards to optimisation and uses C as well as C++. This offers one of the easiest, fastest, lower resource consumption and the highest level of performance optimisation frameworks in the market. Some of its features are consisting caching, security and assets management etc.

Phalcon framework does not boost only execution speeds but it also decreases resource usage. Phalcon is able to boost overall performance and save processor time. On the top of it, there is no need to learn c or C++ language to master this framework, as the functionality is exposed as PHP classes ready to use for any application. Phalcon is loosely coupled, you are free to use the full framework or just specific parts. Phalcon can be download and install as a PHP module.

• Router – Phalcon\Mvc\Router offers highly advanced routing capabilities.
• MVC & HMVC – this area consists of Models, Modules, views, components, and controllers.
• Autoloader – It offers the autoloading mechanism of the PHP classes when following the PSR-4. 

3. Symfony Framework For Developer:-

Version:2.7, 2.8, 3.4, 4.0

Release Date: Jan 2007

PHP Version Required: 5.3.9, 5.5.9

Symfony is one of the oldest PHP framework players. This is widely used because it is faster, handy, stable, dependable, and quick adaptability framework. The quick adaptability and widely used documentation of Symfony framework makes it one of the best dependable framework. It includes roughly 30 stand alone components that are available for developer’s own applications. The Symfony 2 framework components are used by many large scale and impressive projects such as Drupal CMS or phpBB forum s/w, but Laravel framework is always listed on top. It also relies on it. Symfony framework has many ardent fans and wide developer community. Symfony Components are reusable PHP libraries that developers can complete many different tasks with object configuration, form creation, templating, routing, authentication and many others tasks.

4. CodeIgniter Powerful PHP Framework

Release Date: By EllisLab on February 28, 2006

Versions : 2.2.6 , 3.1.7

Latest Versions : Codelgniter 4 ( June 2016 )

The CodeIgniter is simple, Powerful, flexible, lightweight, easy to use and hassle free installation PHP Framework that is almost 10 years old in the market. It was designed for developers who need an elegant yet simple toolkit in mind when developing full-featured web applications. With this PHP framework, typical version conflicts are avoided. It also handles errors very easily in models and views. CodeIgniter is not strictly based on the MVC development pattern. Using Controller classes are must, but Views and Models are optional and developers can freely use their own naming and coding conventions. It also allows you to add third party plugins if the developer needs more complicated functionalities. It also offers security feature which is highly valuable. CodeIgniter is supporting an easy learning curve thus making it best choice for beginner developers. During the installation process, it requires only a minimal configuration which is an ideal choice if you want to avoid PHP version conflict. Because of which, it works nicely on all dedicated and shared hosting platforms and currently it requires only PHP.

5. Cake PHP Framework

Release Date: April 2005

Latest Version: CakePHP 2.5.3 Oct 2009

The CakePHP Framework is there in the market for almost 10 years. The first version was released in 2005 but still, it’s the most popular framework because it has always continued to grow with new features. CakePHP supports both PHP4 and PHP5. CakePHP has been used by big brands such as Hyundai, Express, and BMW. It’s an excellent tool for creating web applications that need high-level security, such as XSS (cross-site scripting) prevention, input validation, CSRF (cross-site request forgery) protection, SQL injection prevention etc helps to keep your apps secure and safe.

6. Zend – 12.5% :-

Release Date: 2006-03-03

Latest Version: 2.4

Zend Framework is considered to be very robust as well as a stable open-source framework for developing big enterprise level web applications by using object-oriented code. Therefore, it is usually not recommended for small projects but it’s excellent for complex projects. By using the ZendService, you can implement client’s libraries for access the popular available web services. IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Adobe are the partners of Zend. The coming release Zend 3 will be optimised for PHP 7 but it will still support PHP 5.5

The current released Zend 2 also has lots of cool features such as an easy to use drag and drop editors with support for front-end technologies (like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap), cryptography coding tools, connected Database Wizard, instant online debugging and Unit testing tools in PHP.

Hopefully, this list of the top Six best PHP Frameworks for 2018 helps you to better understand the PHP Frameworks available and their features. Let us know if we missed something in the comment section below.