Top 5 PHP Frameworks in Demand for Web Development in 2017
- Laravel
- Codeigniter
- Yii
- Symfony
- Cakephp
Here is a brief introduction to each one of them along with their key benefits:
1. Laravel
This is one of the most popular PHP frameworks and it is in demand for being easy to learn, fast development, and large community. In addition to these, security and low server overhead also make it appealing for most businesses.
Advantages:
- Fast development cycles with Elixir
- Documentation is great
- Large community
- You can leverage the benefits of Laraval Homestead
2. Codeigniter
It is the fastest PHP framework based on popular model-view-controller (MVC) development pattern. It is most often noted for its speed compared to other PHP frameworks and hence many business owners prefer to entrust their projects to an Outsourcing Codeigniter Framework agency based in India.
Advantages:
- It has a small footprint
- Needs little configuration, hence you can easily get started with.
- High performance
- Support from live community
3. Yii
This PHP framework provides a lot of features out of the box. It has well-made improved implementation of ActiveRecord design pattern and Gii code generator which help you to develop prototypes very fast.
Advantages
- Code generation and scaffolding capabilities facilitate fast development
- Strong community
- Easy testing with error handling and debug toolbar
- High performance
4. Symfony
Along with being a full stack web framework, Symfony is a reusable set of decoupled, standalone and cohesive PHP components. You can use these components without the framework or with other compatible frameworks. You can hire Symfony Framework specialists for you enterprise-grade web development projects.
Advantages
- Large and rich community
- Convention over convention principle, dependency injection, etc. provides you with great testing environment
- Stable releases with backward compatibility
- Well documented
5. CakePHP
CakePHP enables you to achieve the same effect that other developers obtain but by writing less code. This infers that you get more time to plan out, test well and ensure better performance.
Advantages
- Fast development with similar features in Yii
- Easy and simple to learn
- Strong and active community
Now it’s your turn
Personally I've used all of these (except Yii), I like how bothLaravel and CakePHP (especially v3) build on top Symfony's code, which always seemed to be pretty solid. If you want to get a feel for these frameworks, maybe checkout https://github.com/gothinkster/realworld - it's a blog written in a number of PHP and Javascript frameworks, like a more-advanced ToDoMVC.