What Php Frameworks You Should Use in 2021?

The most trending PHP Frameworks are discussed below

1. Laravel

The PHP Framework for Web Artisans is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It is a free, open-source PHP web framework and is one of the most popular frameworks for web development.

Laravel provides a wide variety of security features such as Authentication, Authorisation, Email Verification, Encryption, Hashing & Password Reset.

If one uses Mac, they have the option of using Laravel Valet as their development environment. Laravel Valet also supports other Php Frameworks like Symfony, Cake PHP, Zend, Slim & WordPress.

Laravel ecosystem has various useful tools like Socialite for authentication and Mix for compiling CSS and JS assets.

2. CodeIgniter 

It’s a ridiculously small size web application development framework is merely 1.2 MB in size. 

CodeIgniter framework supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite3 and is partly PSR compliant which means that it follows PHP standard recommendations for class and file naming standards, implements auto loading and logger interface, but doesn’t follow caching or HTTP message interface very strictly.

This framework provides classes for FTP, image manipulation, email sending, user-agent, unit testing, security, encryption, caching driver, throttling, typography, pagination & form validation, etc.

It also provides the users with two tools- Timer & Iterator, for benchmarking their PHP application. 

3. Cake PHP  

Cake PHP follows the model–view–controller approach and is written in PHP. It is modeled after the concepts of Ruby on Rails and is distributed under the MIT License.

This framework can be used to build highly secure and scalable web applications, including social networks, e-commerce, and online collaboration platforms.

It comes with its own inbuilt ORM, which is quick and very simple to use. The biggest pros of using Cake PHP are that it has a minimal configuration.

We can begin coding as soon as we set up the database as it doesn’t require dealing with XML or YAML files.

It comes with major security features like methods for encryption, password hashing, safeguarding form data, and CSRF protection. A list of Cake PHP plug-ins and resources is hosted on Github.

4. Symfony

For developing websites and application that need to be scalable, Symfony frameworks turn out to be the best choice as it comes with a modular component system which allows its users flexibility of choosing the components for their projects as per their needs.

Almost all the major databases (Drizzle, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere, SQLite, SQLServer) used in PHP Frameworks are supported by Symfony.

It uses the Twig templating engine which is not just easy to learn but also fast and secure. Unlike most PHP frameworks, Symfony comes with professional support for its users as it has got commercial backing from Sensio Labs.

5. Zend Framework/Laminas Project

The Zend Framework is a long-established PHP framework that has transitioned to the Laminas Project lately.

It is a strong recommendation for the users of the Zend framework to migrate to the Laminas Project a Zend is no longer updated. With more than 570 million installations, it is one of the most used Php Frameworks.

This PHP Framework has 3 parts to it :

1. Laminas Components and MVC
2. Mezzio
3. Laminas API Tools

Zend can be used to build Restful APIs. It follows the PHP Framework Interop Group (PHP-FIG) standards which mean that its code can be ported across to other frameworks without any hassle.

Also Read: What is MERN Stack?

6. Yii (Framework)

Yii stands for ‘Yes, It Is!’ In Chinese Yii means ‘simple and evolutionary’. It’s a flexible yet pragmatic PHP framework.

It’s easy to follow and is very well documented. It has a robust cache component.

Yii comes with easy to follow guides for implementing different sorts of caching, from server-side caching to client-side in-browser caching, for instance, data caching, fragment caching, page caching, query caching, HTTP caching, etc.

An MVP can be rapidly prototyped using the GII2 code generator provided by Yii in order to implement the CRUD operations for a database. Big tech giants like Deloitte, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Discovery, Lulo, Utrip use Yii for their web application development.

7. Slim

Slim is a very fast PHP framework as its codebase is lean and it doesn’t have any third-party dependencies.

It’s agile, a stripped-down micro PHP framework that focuses on how to receive an HTTP request, invoke a callback and return an HTTP response. It’s very easy to learn and is best suited for developing small applications and API’S.

8. Phalcon

It’s a Php Framework built for speed. Both single and multi-module MVC applications can be built through Phalcon Framework.

It is basically a framework that is low on resource consumption and high on performance. It supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite.

The cache component of Phalcon supports various backends like Redis, Memcached, Mongo and provides quick access to pre-processed data.

9. FuelPHP

The FuelPHP Framework is a simple, fast and flexible PHP 5.4+framework, born from the best ideas of other frameworks, with a fresh start.

It’s an MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework written in PHP which fully supports HMVC (Hierarchical Model View Controller) as part of its architecture.

FuelPHP comes with some amazing security features like:

• Output encoding
• CSRF protection
• Input, URI, and XSS filtering
• Escaping user input passed into SQL statements

This framework comes with OIL, which is its own command-line utility that can be used by its users to run their tasks, debug the code, and also to generate common components. The FuelPHP ORM is potent and yet very lightweight.

10. Lumen

To develop PHP-powered web applications, the Lumen framework can be used. It is one of the fastest micro frameworks available and can be used to build lightning-fast APIs and microservices.

Features like Eloquent ORM, testing, validation, authorization, caching, queues, views, etc. are basically Laravel features that can be used in Lumen with minimal configurations. It can easily be upgraded to a full-fledged Laravel Application if need be.