Top 5 PHP Frameworks in 2021
Today we will talk about the Top 5 PHP frameworks. Languages like Java or Python depend on frameworks and additional software to create web apps. However, that is not the case with PHP. PHP was built for the web. You can simply create a PHP website using just one file. No additional libraries needed, no frameworks needed. Just raw PHP code. However, when working on bigger projects it is always suggested to use some framework to modularise your code.
Top 5 PHP Frameworks
So in this article let us have a look at my favorite top 5 PHP frameworks.
1 – Laravel
Laravel is simply one of the finest PHP frameworks out there. Some people even consider it as the ultimate PHP framework of choice. Laravel, first launched in 2011 has received a lot of support and following. It is a fully-featured framework with an ORM, view handler, and many other plugins. However, I feel Laravel is not the best choice when it comes to small apps.
It is probably the only good solution for heavy apps but I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners or a solution where you need to quickly deploy a service. Understanding Laravels’ setup and proper configuration take time. But if you know what you are building, every second spent is worth it.
2 – Slim
What do I say about this one? Slim is my personal favorite when I need to quickly set up an API. It is a microframework, so you may not get as many options as Laravel. However, Slim offers several interesting features like a dependency container that allows you to inject dependencies.
It also has several pluggable components like CSRF and you get Middleware support as well.
3 – Flight
This is another gem I found sometime back when looking for frameworks. I’d like to go on record and say that Flight is the easiest PHP framework out there. What I really like about Flight is that it doesn’t get in your way of writing code. The framework is extremely fast with a bare minimal footprint. Though the framework offers extensibility, it has its own limitations. I would still say that for small projects, Flight is the best choice.
4 – Phalcon
Phalcon is the most out of the box framework as it is actually delivered as a C extension. This means it performs exponentially better than other frameworks when it comes to speed. Needless to say, this is a fully-featured framework with an ORM and you even get support for MongoDB. Phalcon also uses PHQL i.e its own query language for querying SQL databases.
5 – CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter is another low footprint framework that can be used for rapidly developing web apps. You get most of the functions and classes that you might need out of the box. Features such as easy database querying, message flashing and easily sending emails are already built-in in CodeIgniter. It has a very easy setup and you can just download the CodeIgnitor source files and place them in your root directory.
Conclusion
I know that there are a lot of PHP frameworks out there but I have mentioned a list of frameworks that I have found useful. If you have any of your favorites that didn’t make it to the list, do let me know in the comment section.
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