Here’s my very basic research into current PHP Frameworks – the target was to get this done in an hour.
Firstly if they have a professional design I’m assuming there’s at least a bit of funding behind the project.
Secondly I do a simple search for AJAX in their documentation. If they don’t mention how to use the framework with AJAX then I’m not interested.
| Name | PHP Version | Professional Design | Search AJAX in Help | Worth further investigation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kohana (CodeIgniter clone) |
5 | Yes | No | No – more CodeIgniter jobs about |
| Yii | 5 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lithium (CakePHP clone) |
5.3 | Yes | No | No – more CakePHP jobs about |
| Akelos | 4 | Yes | No | |
| PHP on Trax (based on Ruby on Rails) |
? | Not really | No | |
| Fuel | 5.3 | Yes | No | |
| Agile Toolkit | 5.3 | Yes | Yes | |
| CodeIgniter | 5.1.6 | Yes | No | Yes |
| CakePHP (V2) | 5.2.9 | Yes | No | Yes |
| Solar | 5.2 | Yes | No | |
| Rain | 5 | Yes | A little | |
| Recess | 5.2.4 | Yes | No |
PHP Micro frameworks:
- DooPHP
- Fat-Free Framework
- Limondae
- Slim
I looked in detail at Agile toolkit but ultimately found their documentation too limited.
Recess looked good because of its focus on RESTful API which is built in – however I’m also keen on built in validation which this doesn’t have yet.
In summary for me it boils down to 2 factors, is it popular framework where jobs are advertised as requiring that knowledge and/or is it going to give a big advantage in developing applications rapidly. I’m going to focus my efforts on CakePHP (I’ve already built an app using 1.2.6 and version 2 will be launched very soon), CodeIgniter, Yii and also Fat-Free Framework.