Understanding the Merits and Demerits of the Best PHP Frameworks of Today

Perfection is a term that is relative in nature and it applies to every aspect in this world. As technology progresses, there will be certain aspects of a network, program, framework that may not really work in favor of us. Let us understand the basic pros and cons of the best PHP frameworks of today.

     Top PHP Frameworks of 2017

Laravel PHP Framework:

Although one of the best things to happen to the web development community, Laravel is not short of its pros and cons. Laravel differs from its contemporaries because of its wide acceptance and openness to accept other PHP frameworks with a relatively newer version. It had put it the PHP network at par with Django and Rails within a short frame of time.

Pros:

• ·         A very popular language for web development.
• ·         It has a certain ease of development that has been thought over by its developers. All you need to do is get the command right.
• ·         It provides a great platform to learn the object-oriented design in PHP.
• ·         It helps to introduce you to traits, facades, factories and much more to become well versed in PHP and grow faster.

Cons:

• ·         Not a perfect choice for amateur developers due to multiple issues
• ·         Slower than its contemporaries such as CodeIgniter
• ·         Not suited for real-time communication
• ·         PHP is one of the poorly designed languages and it remains to be so too

   Best PHP Frameworks of 2017

Cake PHP Framework:

It follows many concepts of Ruby on Rails and is quite popular amongst web developers. It is known to make web applications swifter and easier.

Pros:

• ·         Does not need programmers to use complex YAML and XML files
• ·         It supports the MVC pattern in software development
• ·         Quickly helps to recreate easier reusable codes
• ·         Has innovative built-in tools that enable a programmer to make web applications safe and secure

Cons:

• ·         Inadequate documentation is one of the major disadvantages
• ·         More complex than other PHP frameworks such as CodeIgniter
• ·         Not easy to switch to the updated version of CakePHP, even from 2x to 3x
• ·         Does not support default routes for elaborate URLs

   PHP Framework Trends 2017

CodeIgniter Framework

It rose to fame in quick succession along with another popular framework called Cake PHP. A very powerful PHP framework with low imprints and is ideal for developers who need elegant and fully featured web applications.

Pros:

• ·         Easy to learn, hence makes it easy for beginners to learn it
• ·         Small footprint with great documentation
• ·         Does not have any lags and it is great in performance

Cons:

• ·         Library does not have too many features and refinements
• ·         Code modification is difficult
• ·         No inbuilt support for AJAX and ORM

Slim PHP Framework

Slim PHP helps you to quickly write simple yet powerful APIs and web applications. It is a predecessor of the micro framework movement started in 2013 and is still quite a popular framework to use.

Pros:

• ·         It is great is debugging and error handling
• ·         Quick and efficient mapping of HTTP router requests
• ·         It supports any PSR 7 HTTP message implementation

Cons:

• ·         It is used to build a REST API but insists on putting everything in one .php file
• ·         Leaves out many components of a full stack framework such as database abstraction, validation of input, authentication
• ·         Cannot accommodate very large projects

    PHP Framework Performance Comparison 2017

All in all, although all the PHP Frameworks are required to build excellent web applications, however, none are free of their own disadvantages. They share certain common features however also have a few areas of concern. Web developers are the best judge in deciding which one is the best.