php frameworks

[sam113101]

I'm kind of new to the MVC design pattern, and I find it really nice and well thought out.
Using MVC with php makes my code A LOT clearer. It also speeds up development in the long run.

I don't want to write my own MVC framework each time I start a new project so… I told myself I should
look for php frameworks, choose one that suits me and use it for all my projects.

It's hard to choose a php framework, there are many of them and they are all new to me.
So, what is your experience with php frameworks? Which one is your favorite?

If I don't find the perfect one I'll make my own, I guess.

PS: I'm trying cakephp right now. I like it so far.

[Cronax]

I remember working with CodeIgniter was pretty damn slick when I looked into it about a year ago, didn't need it in the end though since a buddy of mine ended up doing the project.
The buddy used Nooku, which is a framework based on the Joomla CMS and pretty damn beastly at that. The things he can build in minutes would take hours otherwise.

[vyshane]

I've done quite a lot of CakePHP. Still do. There are many things in Cake that I find icky. Look into Yii. It's an altogether better designed framework.

[cheebs]

Symfony.

After having tried at least 10 others over a course of 5 years or so developing in PHP, none of the old traditional frameworks like CakePHP, CodeIgniter, etc. are doing nearly as much innovation as Symfony, and do not step up to the plate when it comes to enterprise-level performance demands.  I'm totally foregoing discussions about Symfony's advantages in scalability, modularity, ORMs and command-line tools.  I'll let you dive into those on your own.

Having said that, since you're just now getting started with this type of thing I'd suggest trying them all just as a learning experience.

Another thing you should probably look into ASAP if you're doing web development is Ruby and RoR.  Ruby is already becoming a stronger alternative to PHP in a number of situations.  If it weren't for Symfony, I'd probably be using Ruby exclusively, out of necessity.


Sidenote : Alot of people will recommend Zend.  Ignore them, this will save you lots of time and frustration.

[nar]

I personally use Kohana alot. It's a very lightweight but flexible framework, and it supports HMVC rather than just normal MVC which I prefer.
It is rather light though, you can integrate Zend framework components directly in to avoid rewriting common features, but I'd probably use Symfony if I needed some super big and complete enterprise framework.