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Due to the popularity of microservice architecture, a large number of teams are faced with the need to choose a framework. Because most projects on the web are written in PHP, teams often decide to break up an existing monolithic service in the same programming language to save time. In this article, I propose to go through all the modern frameworks in PHP and tell you how suitable one or the other is for microservices. Requirements First of all, we need to decide on the requirements we have for our future services. Each team has different priorities for choosing a framework. If we look at the requirements for a classic service, these would be: Framework features Framework support and frequency of updates Security Performance Community When looking at the requirements through the lens of microservices, the requirements shift from framework capabilities and update frequency to speed and the ability to scale the service quickly and conveniently. Since the required framework capabilities differ from service to service, let's look at the list of requirements needed in any microservice: Speed of response Speed and ease of deployment Scalability Extensibility Community The microservice architecture itself involves splitting the responsibilities of a service into smaller ones, which allows the requirements for each service to be divided separately. Due to the fact that microservices assume some small set of responsibilities in each service, the application does not need to load all the features of the framework, but only the necessary parts, which leads to the acceleration of the service. Thus, the main requirement for classical, monolithic applications is not relevant for microservices. Frequency of updates and especially security patches are important for services that work with clients, for example, for a microservice that proxies requests from clients and directs them to the right services. At the same time, with Gateway implementation, all other services already consider the request within the architecture as safe and can reduce the response time by doing without additional checks. The specifics of the architecture implementation may vary depending on the team and project. In my opinion, performance is the most important point when choosing a framework for microservices. Since several services are often required to work together to generate responses, each service should respond as fast as possible so that the total response time to the user does not differ much from the response time of a monolithic application. Also, performance problems can cause difficulties in scaling due to unnecessary resources consumed. The advantage of a microservice architecture is the ability to scale only the necessary parts of the application, which allows for great savings on resources and reduced response time. In order for this advantage not to turn into a disadvantage, we, when choosing a framework, should also think about the scalability and speed of service deployment. It is worth noting the extensibility of the framework as one of the requirements when choosing a framework, because often some frameworks, especially microframeworks, provide a very limited set of features, and the tasks for such services can be very different and require an additional set of functionality, for example, work with queues or protocols. As for the community - it is always an important parameter when choosing a framework, regardless of whether it is a monolith or a microservice, but it should not be the main and only criteria of choice. Let's take a look at the solutions we have to choose from. Solutions According to JetBrains , frameworks by popularity are arranged in this order: research I decided to research popular frameworks since I said that community plays an important role when choosing a framework. If we exclude CMSs that are incorrectly compared to frameworks, we get a list of 6 frameworks Laravel Symfony CodeIgniter Yii Slim CakePHP I also think that we should add one more framework, which although not yet popular has very good speed and is increasing its popularity - Phalcon. Laravel The author of the most popular PHP framework is Taylor Otwell. For its more than 10-year history, it has turned into a full-fledged ecosystem with the framework at its head. Among the pluses of Laravel, it is worth mentioning the beginner-friendly documentation and project structure, ecosystem, where you can find everything, including the work with application deployment. However, Laravel has some disadvantages, such as not having the fastest request processing and difficult upgrade to a new version. Within the Laravel ecosystem, there is also a special micro-framework called Lumen. Lumen Is a scaled-down version of Laravel, which turns off most parts of the framework core that are not necessary and only add some convenience, such as built-in authorization or event model.  In recent years, Lumen has not added new functionality, but only updated the version following its big brother. Symfony Developed in 2005 by SensioLabs, this framework has a good code base and follows in many ways. Symfony code is used in many other libraries and frameworks, such as Laravel. Given its relatively high entry threshold, Symfony developers, on average, tend to possess more advanced skills compared to their Laravel counterparts. This heightened skill level often facilitates quicker resolution of queries. However, it's important to acknowledge certain drawbacks. Symfony doesn't exhibit the swiftest response times, and its documentation, while comprehensive in elucidating intricate details, can prove intricate for newcomers to the framework, leading to potential confusion during initial interactions. SOLID principles CodeIgniter Crafted for speed and efficiency, the framework, introduced in 2006 by Phil Sturgeon, boasts excellent documentation and an active community. It offers a streamlined collection of built-in features and a malleable architecture, empowering project tailoring to individual requirements. However, a drawback lies in the relatively limited number of third-party packages that seamlessly integrate with CodeIgniter out of the box. Yii Qiang Xue introduced the inaugural version of Yii in 2008. Renowned for its exceptional extensibility, Yii stands out with numerous optimizations that position it as a top-tier, swift framework within the market. Notably, Yii offers an extensive array of built-in functionalities, encompassing code autogeneration and robust ORM capabilities. Nevertheless, it's worth noting that the Yii documentation occasionally falls short of fully elucidating all features. This shortfall is mitigated by an engaged community that provides assistance. Additionally, Yii presents a somewhat constrained assortment of libraries and extensions, alongside an initial lack of comprehensive out-of-the-box support for REST APIs. Slim Released by Josh Lockhart in 2010, this framework is considered to be one of the fastest in PHP. Because of its simple structure, it is well-suited to simple tasks, but the smaller number of components inside often forces developers to implement the functionality themselves. The implementation itself in the project is not difficult, but the small community does not give the opportunity to reuse the ready-made solution. CakePHP Another framework launched in 2005. The author is Larry Masters. The framework provides a good structure for the application, but difficulties occur in getting the team to learn the rigid design of the application. It is an extensible framework. On the downside, it does a poor job of updating the PHP version and requires more memory. Phalcon The youngest and fastest framework among the ones described in this article. Its first version was released in 2016 under the authorship of Halcyon Labs and has not yet been properly distributed. The main distinguishing feature is that it is written as a C extension for PHP. The priority of the developers was less server load and speed of response. Due to the specifics of the implementation - Phalcon is hard to set up and also requires additional adaptation for those team members who do not know C. Comparison Due to the fact that each framework has its own pros and cons, sometimes it can be difficult to choose a particular option. In order to avoid problems in choosing a framework just because of the qualifications available on the team, it is necessary to better understand the differences between frameworks. The table can help with this: Requirements Laravel/Lumen Symfony CodeIgniter Yii Slim CakePHP Phalcon Speed Medium/Fast Medium Fast Fast Fast Medium Very Fast Deployment Medium/Medium Medium Fast Medium Fast Medium Slow Scalability Bad/Good Normal Bad Bad Good Normal Normal Extensibility Good/Good Good Bad Good Normal Good Normal Community Big Big Small Big Normal Small Small Features A lot A lot Not a lot A lot A few Not a lot Not a lot Updates Regular/No updates Regular Regular Non-regular Regular Non-regular Regular Documentation Good/Good Normal Good Bad Good Normal Good Conclusions As you can see from the table, despite the popularity of some frameworks, it is very difficult to choose one option. When choosing a framework, it is important to realize that the choice depends on the specific requirements for each service and the choice cannot depend only on the speed of operation or the experience of the team. An important factor for microframeworks should be extensibility. does not restrict the choice of a separate framework for each microservice, but it is worth highlighting that this practice can lead to potential errors due to incompatible requests and responses from scratch. Microservice architecture It is up to each team to choose which framework to write on. In my opinion, the best solution will be one framework from Phalcon/Lumen/Slim. Phalcon will give more speed but will make you struggle with infrastructural problems. Lumen, despite the convenient syntax that came from Laravel, is still as fast as Slim, but deploying Lumen is not as convenient and easy. Slim, on the other hand, provides quite a bit of functionality, but if you need a simple service that will do things quickly, Slim is a good option. All other frameworks also have their advantages, but they are more suitable for full-fledged large services, for example, for monoliths. The lead image for this article was generated by via the prompt "Cloud computing" HackerNoon's AI Image Generator

Choosing a PHP Framework for Microservice Architecture  

When PHP developers need to prepare any enterprise-grade web application, they often prefer to use a framework. Using a framework in your coding work makes it easy for you to handle things with minimal coding. PHP frameworks also come in handy because they have coding standards that recommend good programming style, practices, and methods. But choosing a framework requires a bit of research. As a part of team (an IT Solutions Company and PIM Solution Provider) I am here to help you compare these two PHP frameworks: Laravel vs. Symfony. Syncrasy Tech Industry Stats Google Trends says that Laravel has been the most popular PHP framework for the last 5 years. Symfony is 2nd on the list. Image Source: Google Trends In this post, I’ll go through: Brief Overview of Frameworks Benefits of Laravel Benefits of Symfony Performance & Scalability Modularity Database support Popularity, Documentation & Learning Curve Image Source: Syncrasy Tech Symfony vs. Laravel: A Brief Overview When talking about Laravel, I’m referring here to all its versions 5.0, 5.1 (LTS), to 5.8 and the upcoming 6.0 (LTS) version. The framework helps you rapidly develop web applications with syntax that's simple and easy to learn, read, and maintain. Benefits of Laravel Introduced in 2011 by Taylor Otwell, Laravel has many benefits. Laravel allows separation of ‘business logic code’ from ‘presentation code’. Such separation allows you to change the appearance of a web page easily. Bug fixes with Laravel are also faster. Laravel supports integration with backend tools like and that makes web development easier and faster. Memcached Redis It fixes the most critical web application security vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and cross-site request forgery. Here is the to help web developers build more secure applications. Laravel Security Checklist Laravel which offers a convenient method for testing web applications. automates code testing with PHPUnit Symfony is an open-source web application framework. It is also popular among web developers for its reusable components as well as its libraries. Started in 2005 by French company SensioLabs, Symfony is an expandable framework. It adds unique functionality and features that can change everything within the application's framework, without having to reconfigure the entire framework. Benefits of Symfony Like Laravel, the open-source PHP framework Symfony also works on MVC architecture which is helpful for building scalable web applications. The MVC model also ensures that your project lives within a structured system that simplifies and speeds up the development process by separating business and presentation layers from each other. Symfony components are reusable and decoupled PHP libraries that work as a base for web development projects. These help you complete common tasks without writing lengthy code. components Symfony profiler is one of the best features that developers can use to track the behavior of any application by mapping all its actions and activities on the back-end side. for a full guide on how to use Symfony profiler for testing a web application. Check here Symfony has all the benefits that you expect from a PHP framework, for example speedy development, reliability of debugging with an extensible debugging toolbar, automated deployment of applications, easy documentation, and large community support. Performance & Scalability Performance and scalability are two key factors behind the success of every web application.  Laravel has a set of , while Symfony caches source code and views by default. This is the reason why Symfony has a longer website loading time. unified APIs for caching views The average loading time for websites on Laravel is about 60 milliseconds, while Symfony's load time is about 250 milliseconds. In the below image, you can see the load times of Symfony and Laravel on the two largest web servers Apache and NginX. (Image Source: Bitcoininsider.org) Laravel is based upon . At the same time, Laravel allows you to do PHP programming with less code and higher performance. If you’re thinking of building your next web application for business purposes, then Laravel works best for projects that need faster delivery with fewer resources. Symfony Components Symfony, on the other hand, requires more time, coding effort, and financial resources at the beginning stage of your projects. It also requires a lot of work for configuring its elements. But Symfony is a good choice for complex web projects, as its custom functionality works well with the requirements of your business web application. Modularity Standards Symfony is based on the that comes with a fine collection of reusable components. This ensures better modularity when developing a web application. bundled form of a modular structure Symfony Bundles (like FrameworkBundle, SecurityBundle, DebugBundle, and so on) are used to share code and features between different applications. is different. It is more restricted when you want to make quick changes to your web application. As a result, any changes to the application modules mean that developers don't just have to deal with that module, but instead with the entire unit of code. Laravel’s architecture Diagram of Laravel Architecture Image Source: Stack Overflow Symfony’s ability to organize code makes it an ideal choice for complex web development projects. This is the reason why some web developers prefer Symfony over Laravel. When it comes to the template engine, Symfony uses the which allows you to write concise and readable templates. Twig templating engine On the other hand, Laravel uses the for web applications because of its code's reusability. Also, there’s no need to define the same function twice as in the Twig template engine. Blade templating engine Both these frameworks are built on the MVC architecture. But in the end, Symfony is still the best choice for its code modularity and component reusability. Database Support The database support system is important because it allows developers to manage data and perform multiple tasks with ease. It stores, organizes, and manages information within a single software application. Using a database support system in web development projects increases efficiency in business operations and reduces costs. Both Symfony and Laravel use ORM (Object Related Mapping) for data access. Symfony ORM uses Doctrine while Laravel ORM uses Eloquent for data handling. Symfony database migrations are automatic. But developers need to define specific fields in the given code. On the other hand, Laravel uses database migrations and there is no need to define the fields. With ORM supported databases, these two PHP frameworks make it easier to process data and data manipulation. Symfony provides a few more options for database support, for example: MySQL Oracle Drizzle SQLServer PostgreSQL SQLite SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere While Laravel supports only a few of them: MySQL PostgreSQL SQLite SQLServer As you can see with these options, Symfony supports more databases than Laravel. Because of this, data manipulation and data management become much simpler with Symfony. So Symfony wins this one. But Laravel's functionality allows you to avoid bulky and large code blocks. Laravel also saves you time and effort on web projects rather than doing tedious, repetitive tasks. It supports many important tools that help make common tasks easier. It also automates functions like authentication, queuing, sessions, caching and routing. Popularity, Documentation & Learning Curve Choosing the right framework is always important for a developer whether you're updating your web application's content or website content. Choosing a PHP framework based on its popularity can bring some benefits. With a more popular framework, you get a large amount of training and support information online. You can find useful tutorials online for Laravel in the , , , , and . Laravel documentation Laracasts discussion forum Treehouse Sitepoint Codebright The Laravel are also extensive and provide excellent information that Symfony doesn’t provide. Github docs is also available but has more topics on bundles, components, service containers, and other sets of features. has more than 600,000 developers and contributors from more than 120 countries that help fix bugs and identify coding errors. Symfony documentation Symfony’s community Symfony is also popular among web developers. It shares great documentation, even though the resources are not as extensive as those for Laravel. In the end, Laravel is more popular than Symfony. There are more than on the web built using the Laravel framework. To compare, the number of websites built on Symfony is around 33,000. You can check for more information. 1 million websites here In the End From the points mentioned above, it’s clear that both Laravel and Symfony are rich in features. Both are suitable to use on a wide range of web development projects. Laravel is often preferred by developers for its rapid development, performance, and speed. Symfony is suitable for the development of complex and large-size web applications. You must use whatever suits your web project. Just make sure you choose the framework that you feel more comfortable with for the development of your web apps. Previously published at https://syncrasytech.com/blogs/laravel-vs-symfony Contact us at a Global IT Solutions Company and PIM Solution Provider for all your queries and requirements related to web development projects and . Syncrasy Tech PIM implementation

PHP Laravel VS Symfony: A Detailed Comparison of Web Development Frameworks

If you are making your first steps in the world of web development, either as a prospective programmer or a potential employer, it won’t be long until you come across PHP. It’s no surprise, as PHP ranks among the most popular web programming languages. On top of that, the whopping are built on PHP, and the web tools you use daily, like Facebook, Wikipedia, Yahoo, MailChimp, and Pinterest, are among them. 79% of all websites While words are enough to write a text in any natural language, using bare PHP to build a web application would be a long and complicated process. Therefore, to simplify the development, it is a common practice to use PHP frameworks, which contain pre-packaged web template libraries and enable database access and user management among other functions. So, this article will answer five principal PHP framework-related questions and supply you with the insights that can save you time and money on your future project. What Is PHP? Let’s start with the basics. PHP is an open-source server-side programming language for web development, which can be embedded into HTML. It is compatible with the major operating systems (macOS, Windows, Linux, Unix) and supported by a variety of web servers (Apache, nginx, IIS, lighttpd). The language is not limited to HTML and can generate and output text and image files of different formats. Beyond that, PHP supports an impressive selection of databases, which streamlines the web development process. Due to its flexibility, PHP puts little constraint on developers, designers, and employers and offers great freedom of choice and creativity. What Can PHP Do? The answer in is short – “anything,” which is not far from the truth. The three major areas of PHP application are command-line scripting, server-side scripting, and desktop application development (this one is possible in theory, but is rarely put into practice). In simple words, anything that has to do with a web server can be created with PHP: a blog, an online store, a data-processing script, a sophisticated SaaS – you name it. the official PHP manual Essentially, PHP automatically generates conditional HTML content for website visitors. Using a set of variables, PHP draws the needed data from the database and dynamically outputs the corresponding content. This is how online store customers can filter a catalog page to view the newest added items first. Apart from this, PHP allows developers to create, publish, and edit web pages without tweaking the HTML code each time. Instead, one can make necessary changes via user-friendly content management systems built on PHP, like WordPress, and the content database will update automatically. What Is a PHP Framework? A PHP framework is a platform for creating PHP web applications. It contains libraries with pre-packaged functions and classes and, more often than not, elements for software design pattern realization. The latter constitutes an out-of-the-box skeleton of the future project, on which the developer strings code that is either written from scratch or inherited from a library class. PHP frameworks became a customary practice because they take care of the mundane and repetitive aspects of web development. Also, the library functions and classes follow standard web development practices and are well-tested. Using them, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel all the time as well as significantly reduce the probability of errors that can escalate and cause a breakdown. The last but not least advantage of relying on these frameworks is that they make your code readable and intelligible for fellow developers who may work on the same project. What Makes a Good PHP Framework? Selecting the right PHP framework is the key, and one shouldn’t approach it mindlessly. Below is the list of five must-have PHP framework aspects that will help you spot a good solution to drive your development project: MVC-pattern elements. Model–View–Controller is a common design pattern for web interfaces, so having its classes out of the box in your framework allows skipping the demanding process of creating the architecture. Well-stocked libraries. The more extensive the framework libraries, the less time you will spend writing the code manually. Still, consider the scope of your project: if you don’t need a sophisticated solution, you can easily make do without expensive enterprise-level frameworks. Testing features. To avoid spending hours debugging your PHP code, implement a framework with automated testing available. Simplicity. While some PHP frameworks are intuitive and beginner-friendly, others have a steep learning curve. So, unless directly required, there is no need to stick to intricate frameworks and complicate your life on purpose. Popularity. A widespread PHP framework is more likely to have an extensive supportive community of developers and a decent selection of external libraries. Apart from this, using a mainstream framework allows various development teams cooperate easier. Which Are the Best PHP Frameworks? Today, PHP developers in no way suffer from the lack of programming frameworks. On the contrary, it’s easy to get lost in their variety. To point you in the right direction, here is a rundown of five most noteworthy, best-performing and popular PHP frameworks. Laravel Laravel is the hottest PHP framework of the day. Positioned as a framework for “web artisans,” it lives up to its creators’ claims, allowing developers to make beautiful modern designs. Laravel is adored by junior developers for its shallow learning curve, simplicity and top-of-the-line learning materials, while seasoned PHP engineers praise its built-in development environment, templating engine and RESTful routing system. Symphony Symphony offers an outstanding set of features and long-term support releases but demands a decent level of expertise in return. This makes entry-level developers cautious about Symphony yet it doesn’t diminish its popularity. Symphony boasts one of the largest developer communities that SensioLabs, the framework owner, supports by adding comprehensive learning materials, blog posts, and discussions. Zend Due to its component-based nature, Zend is dubbed “a glue framework” in the PHP community. Indeed, with Zend you get the freedom to load only necessary components as individual libraries, which in turn promotes code reuse. The framework not only contains a rich internal library but can also be freely integrated with a plethora of external libraries. Phalcon Phalcon is fundamentally different from other PHP frameworks, as essentially this is a PHP extension written in C. It demands little resources, adopts the MVC framework, and has a blazing performance speed. But due to the absence of an automated testing engine and the framework’s own peculiar nature, finding bugs turns into a quest that discourages even experienced developers from working with Phalcon. CakePHP Opting for CakePHP, you get a solid set of basic functions necessary for PHP development: MVC support, an outstanding selection of helpful plugins and components, code reusability, and out-of-the-box AJAX support. What sets CakePHP apart is its emphasis on coding conventions, which speed up the development process on the one hand but may stifle your creativity on the other. To Wrap It Up It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the choice of a PHP framework will govern the course of your entire development project. Whether the solution you choose will streamline the process or hamper it depends on how well you know your project requirements and whether the PHP framework can address them. Calling in web development consultants is not uncommon at this stage, and if you’re not confident enough in your in-house expertise, getting access to external talent should not be a problem. Understanding PHP frameworks is essential for web developers, but, as PHP specialists from Iflexion admit, it will also be useful for those who are looking to manage or hire a PHP development team.

PHP Frameworks Explained in 5 Simple Questions

Follow the series … This blog post is the fourth and last part of “ ” The Definitive Guide to your next PHP framework If you did not read it yet You can check the other blog posts following the links below , and Introduction to PHP Frameworks Guide to PHP Frameworks part 2 Guide to PHP Frameworks part 3 Introduction to the fourth and last part We are finally here. Right now, you can consider yourself as a proper master Jedi of frameworks. PHP If you have followed the previous parts you have discovered that there are several that can speed up the development process of your web projects or websites. different types of PHP applications Below you will find the last few elements that I consider to be . the best among the 24 frameworks available today My advice, again, is to read through all the reviews in these posts and knowing what do you need to create choose the perfect fit for your project. Let’s start: Table of content Part 4: Smart Framework Symfony TwistPHP TYPO3 Flow Yii Zend Conclusion Special Thanks Complete list Introduction to PHP Frameworks Agavi CakePHP CodeIgniter Drupal Fat Free FullPHP Gyroscope Jamroom Kajona Kohana Laravel Li₃ Nette Framework Phalcon Pop PHP Prado Silex SilverStripe Smart Framework Symfony TwistPHP TYPO3 Flow Yii Zend Conclusion Smart Framework There isn’t a lot of information on the internet about this framework. , a software company with more than 15 years working on the web. The project started between 2009 and 2011 by UNIX-world Its initial release is dated February 2012, and it seems often updated, At the moment, the latest stable version is the 3.7.5 released on the 25th April 2018. As some of the previous items you saw before, it is a free open-source product, BSD licensed and it follows the MVC architecture by mixing multi-tier and middleware. Among its most important features is a wide support of different types of database such as MySql, SQLite, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, several JavaScript components, built-in map handlers (Google maps and Bing maps) and Redis for caching. Why would you want to prefer it rather than others? Well, on the official website, the owners claim that this framework is many times faster than other much more popular ones such us Zend and Laravel. This could be a good reason to try it. Even though, as a downside in order to begin, you need to have a look at the documentation that in this case can look a bit cluttered. Smart Official Website GitHub repository Symfony This is another member of the top-framework club. , CEO at SensioLabs and Blackfire.io. Symfony started in 2005 by Fabien Potencies At its first version, Symfony was supporting PHP 5.0 and just a couple of features, since then it has increased in popularity and reliability becoming now and the first by usage from enterprise companies. one of the 3 most popular just after Laravel and CodeIgniter Symfony is composed by sets of several PHP components that merged together to form the framework. Since its initial release, it was published on a regular base, at least 2 new versions per year. Until now, all of the different releases have at least eight months of support and in some cases, it goes up to three years, There are 4 different versions currently on an LTS release; 2.7 and 2.8 which were both released in 2015, while versions 3.4 and 4.0 was released in November 2017. At the time of writing this article, the next version will be the 4.1 and it will be released in May 2018 and it will support PHP 7.1.3 and newer. As I said early, , more than 30, and explaining all of them is out of the scope of this article. this framework includes plenty of components But some are really interesting and worthy to be mentioned here. Among them, we find the cache component which provides an extended , the console component which is self-explanatory, PSR-6 and PSR-16 for adding cache to the applications A PHPUnit bridge that reports legacy test and deprecated code, as well as security, translation, routing and validator components. One of the amazing characteristics of this framework is its documentation. The guys who are developing this project not only have created a very detailed one but there is an explanation for each of the components. There are also tons of people talking about this framework and a huge community, so documentation and support will never be a problem and this is something to be considered from someone who wants to start using it. Should I learn Symfony? To answer this question, I will describe a famous rule on investing. This rule says that it is a very good idea to focus on blue-chip company, with a very famous brand and decades of successfully divided payment. Here, we have a blue-chip PHP framework of which other different frameworks were born from. For example, Laravel, even though has a more contemporary style, started and is still massively based on Symfony components. This is proof that if you like its traditional style, Symfony is undoubtedly the framework to start. Symfony Official Website Symfony GitHub Repository TwistPHP This is a little framework that makes of the ease of use its trademark. It is an open-source framework given away under GNU license. It contains several features that can be implemented by almost only a couple of lines of code. TwistPHP born as a private project, and as improvements took place, its source-code became public and moved to a GitHub repository in July 2014. The first official release occurred with TwistPHP 2.3.4 in November 2014. Throughout these years, this software had plenty of time to improve and now with its last stable release (3.0.5), it has a complete MVC architecture, Object Oriented design, and brand new method to connect to the database and create MySql queries, the way it has built facilitate its extendibility and reliability. Basically, it can be considered a modern framework in all and for all. If you want to give it a try or help the project grow you can support it through its GitHub repository below Twistphp Official Website TwistPHP GitHub Repository TYPO3 Flow To effectively describe this framework, the story needs to start with TYPO3. (initial release dated 1998). It is a free and open-source CMS developed more than 20 years ago Much used in the German-speaking countries but also available in more than 50 languages, TYPO3 is used to build any type of website. Just to have an idea of how big this CMS is, its code has been edited and improved from more than 300 contributors, and at the moment it has been installed more than 500000 times. TYPO3 Flow was a branch of TYPO3, The team wanted to create a product that would be modern and could have been used independently from TYPO3. After several months of development, the beta was released on August 2011, it also is an open-source product. The latest release is the 4.2.4 and it is dated 18th October 2017. The code is the base code of TYPO3 Neos but as said, it can be used even without the CMS. It has been written following all the latest principle of coding such us the MVC paradigm, AOP (Aspect-Oriented-Programming), DDD (Domain-Driven-Design) and TDD (Test-Driven-Development), etc. For this reason, the software requires version 5.3 or newest. As per database it uses Doctrine 2 and can be interfaced with MySql and PostgreSQL. Another interesting feature about TYPO3 Flow is Fluid; Fluid is its template engine. It supports all logical structures of a language such as condition, iterations, loops, etc, by programming providing a really easy syntax and avoiding the use of PHP in the template files. I managed to speak with Mr. Christian Müller who is the community contact and he highlighted that at the moment of my writing Neos project (including Flow Framework), split off of the TYPO3 project and is now officially standalone as Neos project. Flow Framework can now be found under the name of “Neos Flow” or just Flow, if the context is known. There is no longer a connection to TYPO3 besides a few bits of shared code. That said, as for the Framework, only small changes happen these days. Christian and the team tried to get more PSR compatibility in, use composer more and more and generally gets more open towards packages and increase the size of the community. He personally works on refactoring, SQL improvements and getting releases out. Flow Official Website Flow GitHub Repository Yii Yii is a PHP framework that has been developed by the same creators of Prado. (see ) To be honest, it was born as an attempt to fix all Prado problems Prado review . Like others framework, it is released under the new BSD License, thus, it is possible to use it and create open-source web applications for free. The first beta version was released in 2006 after several months of development, followed by its official 1.0 version in December 2008. A more complete version was released in January 2010, It included a form builder, ActiveRecord, an internal unit test library and several more features that make of Yii a more complete PHP framework than its predecessor. Since the beginning, the developers decided to maintain this project up to date with the most recent technology. At the moment, the current version 2.0.15 has been released in March 2018 and fully supports PHP 7. There aren’t particular features or special peculiarity but and among the characteristics of the latest release you will have: it is a pretty solid framework MVC design pattern, internationalization, and localizations using I18N and L10N, those allow translating text and format time and dates, error handlers and loggings, security measure against XSS and cross-site request forgery, plus a testing functionality of PHPUnit and Selenium. As you have seen numerous times above, one of the main points I am considering when I need to decide whether to start using a new PHP framework is the documentation. Yii’s documentation is second to none. I am not saying they have the best documentation in the world but it is extremely extensive and very well thought. It is divided in two parts, and the part concerned on the , each of them is split by concepts, which make the research of a specific feature much easier and it is also available in several languages, including Spanish, Chinese and Polish. The guide API Speaking of the community, the guys at Yii brought it to the next level, by creating an entire section that they call Extension, composite entirely by user contributions. I asked Alex Makarov, one of the core maintainers of Yii PHP framework for more than 7 years to give us his impression about this framework and this is what he said: “I think, YII is one of the most documented frameworks overall. We’re writing good API docs for everything we release and sometimes expanding the guide. The Learning curve is low to just start but high to be good in the architecture of big projects with Yii. Overall, Yii is great for rapid app prototyping and what’s more, you can really enhance that prototype afterward, not throwing it away and re-writing. There are many tools out of the box. It is faster than many frameworks and doesn’t cache much. Also, it’s very easy to debug in case of errors. It’s not too layered while being flexible.” In conclusion, I think that Yii learned the lesson imparted by the Prado project, even though online there are still doubt about the quality of the framework surely you can taste the effort they put into it. YII Official Website YII GitHub Repository Zend Framework There are lots of controversy about Zend and its whole environment, (and the huge number of installations confirm this statement). It is considered to be one of the most popular PHP Framework available nowadays First released in March 2006, it is an open-source product licensed under the New BSD license. Initially, it was a unique product, after the version 2.5 the developers decide to create a more modular product so they split the framework into several components and it became a collection of PHP packages. There are more than 60 components and plugin to choose from. Among the most important you will find the Authentication, Crypt, Json, Mail, Math, Paginator, Serializer, and Validator. Another advantage of using Zend is its (Test-Driven-Development), predisposition to TDD Zend implements Zend_test, which uses PHPUnit, it allows you to use controllers, models, and libraries. In order to implement PHPUnit to the project, you need to utilize Zend_tool which is the standard scaffolding utility of Zend. As always, I keep particular attention to documentation, tutorials and here Zend is the best of the best. Not only do they have an amazing documentation, but they went several steps further by creating training days, conferences (ZendCon), and a worldwide recognized set of certifications. All this goes alongside the huge community of developers that use it and share its knowledge on daily basis. As I said, , this is a good PHP framework but it has its downside (the quality of the code could be improved and it is definitely not the fastest framework listed in this article), but generally, it is a good framework, and its focus on marketing paid back (who can blame them for it?). Not to mention, the PHP Zend Certificate worth as much as a computer science degree for some HR manager. Zend Official Website Zend GitHub Repository Zend Certification Conclusion I am sure that all of us have heard at least once people saying that , or sentences like: PHP has died “ ”, There is Python now “ ”, .NET is the new PHP “ ”, Have you tried Ruby, it’s amazing “ ” during the last couple of years. I already knew JavaScript so I went for NodeJS The reality is the PHP has changed, and it is still changing nowadays. For a while, it seemed that version 5.5 (released in June 2013) would have been the last one, the abandoned 6.x version and then the upgraded version to 7.0 which was very slow and this gave time to other back-end languages to rise and get more popular. Yet, , the list of features implemented its immense and on average the benchmarks between PHP 7.1 and any other the blue elephant’s language win by far. the result of this pause was the fastest version of PHP ever created I and several thousands of other developers all over the world breathed a sigh of relief and a smile of joy reading through the documentation released on December 2015. Null Coalesce Operator, Spaceship, Generators, Anonymous classes are characteristics of the language that will help developers creating amazing projects for several years to come. , the effort made by Nils Adermann and Jordi Boggiano is unbelievable, this dependency manager has changed the way we code forever. A special note goes to Composer Just by adding a couple of files to the root of our projects and run few commands on the terminal and the power released have the potential to allow you to create the new Facebook (on the paper at least). About the frameworks, as we see there isn’t a unique answer to the question “Which is the best PHP framework available”? There are a lot of questions to be made in order to answer this question; What do you need to create? How far is your deadline? How fast do you want your project to be delivered? It is really so easy to use it? How much time do I have to learn the new syntax? Is there a good documentation to learn from? My advice is to evaluate all of these questions each time for each project. Try the ones that you find more interesting for a bit and choose the ones that make you feel right. , At the same time never forget that PHP frameworks come and go Always focus to learn the main language features and keep up with the updates of new versions every time. additional tip: Do not forget to read “I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.” Bill Gates — Business Greatest Adventures. Now, I am sure we all agree that spending your time in front of a screen either coding of playing around with cloud services, version control websites and so forth is going to increase your abilities as a web developer. But as Bill’s quote says in the book written by John Brooks, . another way to improve and that helped me a lot, is to read books From the evergreens such as “ ” written by the gang of four to “ “ written by Josh Lockhart the curator of PHP The Right Way, there are an incredible amount of resources to learn from. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software Modern PHP Be like Bill. Special Thanks Some special thanks go to the following people who despite being constantly committed to realize and improve the frameworks that we developers and companies all over the world use every day have found the time to answer some of my questions that have increased the quality of this article. They are: Phil Sturgeon https://philsturgeon.uk/ Software Engineer at WeWork for and Fuel PHP CodeIgniter Chema Garrido https://chema.ga/ Founder — CTO at Yclas for Kohana Tomáš Votruba https://www.tomasvotruba.cz/ Head of Social Media and Content Marketing at Notino Milan Šulc https://f3l1x.io/ freelancer DevNinja for Nette Nick Sagona https://nicksagona.com/ Senior Software Developer at Punctual Abstract Co., Inc for POP PHP Christian Müller https://www.flownative.com/ Free Code Creator for TYPO3, Flow and Neos for TYPO3 FLOW Alexander Makarov https://en.rmcreative.ru/ Lead PHP backend developer at Skyeng for YII Nate Abele http://radify.io/ CTO of Radify.io for Li₃ The Definitive Guide to your next PHP framework This blog post is the third part of the Kindle book “ ” The Definitive Guide to your next PHP framework Check: Guide to 24 PHP Frameworks Part 1 Guide to 24 PHP Frameworks Part 2 Guide to 24 PHP Frameworks Part 3 to see the introduction to this article and some other framework’s reviews You can click the link below to download the full version. Now I want to hear from you… I hope you enjoyed my frameworks’ comparison. Which PHP framework have you chosen for your next project?

Guide to 24 PHP Frameworks [Part 4]

Top Web Development Companies in 2018

Image Source: https://www.seattlesymphony.org/about … The light goes out, and the theater sits in silence for several moments. Soon you hear the first sounds of music. It starts timidly. First, a violin makes acquaintance with you, and, further, step by step other instruments get involved in the common melody. The orchestra plays a beautiful symphony… Development has much in common with the playing of music. Every part of a web application should work correctly and integrally to respond to user’s needs. The same way as every single instrument should flawlessly perform its part to make the whole musical composition sound harmoniously. If you have not already guessed, we started with such comparison to introduce you the technology with the most melodious name — Symfony. Today, 8 of all the websites in the world are created with PHP programming language. 82. % A web application or website can be built in pure PHP or with one of its frameworks. It depends on the level of complexity of the application, timeframes of development, the experience of coders, and some other factors. Symfony ranked 3rd in popularity after Laravel and CodeIgniter. Many advantages of Symfony framework are listed on the . But if you want an outside point of view, we’ll share our expert vision. official website We have already compared in our previous article. And now we want to focus on the pros and cons of using Symfony framework. Symfony vs Yii development So, do you want to know why use Symfony for your project? Image source: https://habrahabr.ru/post/281875/ WHAT IS A FRAMEWORK AND WHY DO YOU NEED IT? Before we jump into the discussion of Symfony, let’s clarify what a framework is. A framework is a collection of universal, reusable programs that accomplish particular tasks to facilitate the development of software applications. Metaphorically, it is a skeleton, carcass or basement for a web application or website development. The same way as you buy an empty house and fill it with furniture, developers take a framework and fill it with modules of features. Using a framework is not a must, but it is a good practice to make the coder’s life simpler. The reasons to use a framework are: You can save two or three days of work when reusing generic components that go out-of-box. The saved time can be dedicated to developing of specific features. Faster development. Using a framework imposes a certain structure and common rules to follow. Thus, it won’t be a problem for a new developer or team to join the ongoing project. Easier maintainability. The framework code is clear and proven which reduces the number of mistakes. Fewer issues. The framework components are supported with timely upgrades and enhancement of security. Better security. There is probably no good answer which solution suits better for your project. You can read tons of researches and still do not receive a clear vision. Any tool can be equally good or bad depending on people who use it. When you make a choice, let the following idea lead you: A framework means nothing without a developer who is good in it. If you find an excellent specialist, it won’t really matter which framework to use as far as he/she is proficient in it. GOOD REASONS FOR CHOOSING SYMFONY Symfony was released in 2005 and has made a long way to win the reputation of the most mature and reliable PHP framework. It is the number 1 choice for the enterprise web applications. And here is why: High flexibility Symfony is one of the most feature-rich PHP frameworks. The two most outstanding technological benefits of Symfony that make it so awesome are Bundles and Components. The is almost the same as a plugin. Regard it like a package of files (PHP files, stylesheets, JavaScripts, images) for implementing any feature (for ex, a blog, a shopping cart etc). The main benefit of bundles is that they are decoupled. You can reconfigure and reuse them for many applications to reduce the overall development cost. bundle The are generic features that reduce the routine tasks and allow developers to focus on specific business features. There are 30 helpful Symfony components that facilitate the development process. You can use components independently and add your own custom modules with no trouble to the architecture. Symfony components can also be used stand-alone in other frameworks (for ex., Laravel) or in plain PHP solutions. components Bundles and components help to eliminate strict dependencies in the architecture. The fewer dependencies you have, the easier it will be to make changes without risk of breaking other parts of the system. Thus, you can adapt the solution to any requirements and user scenarios to create a highly flexible application. Image Source: http://www.programering.com/a/MTN4EjMwATE.html 2. Company behind the technology Symfony is one of few frameworks that are commercially supported. , the company-creator, and sponsor, actively contributes to its reputation. They provide official tutorials and certification. In the Company website, you will find a schedule of the upcoming conferences all over the world. This shows the scale and seriousness of their intentions and beliefs. SensioLabs 3. Proven reliability Symfony has proven its reliability over time while many other frameworks failed. Many notable platforms as phpBB, Drupal, Magento, and eZ Publish use its components. And you definitely know the following companies that trusted Symfony with their websites: 4. Easy testing Each new line of code should be tested to guarantee stable work of an application. Reusing of bundles, an absence of strict dependencies and possibility to create design patterns contribute to better maintainability and testing in Symfony. Unit testing is very easy because of using PHPUnit independent library. Functional testing is also automated to reduce the developer’s routine. 5. Long-term support Symfony is a stable and well-tested framework with regular updates. The most recent versions stay long-term supported and compatible with the newer releases: up to 3 years for some of the versions. 6. Large community One of the influential aspects for a framework survivability is a good community. The official website declares 2000+ contributors (1734 on Github) in their community. This number is several times bigger than that of other PHP frameworks communities. Why community matters? Not only the core developers work on improvements. Symfony is an open-source. This means that PHP experts and enthusiasts from all over the world take part in making the code better for everybody. In the community, people cooperate with each other. They create new components, try to solve emerged issues, or help others with advice. 7. Good documentation Incomplete or outdated documentation is a problem of many technologies. Symfony documentation is considered one of the best, compared to the documentation of other PHP frameworks. It is clearly written, well-structured, supplied with eхamples, and updated from version to version. You can find an explanation of every component and the development process as a whole. REASONS NOT TO CHOOSE SYMFONY It would be unfair if we mention only pluses and escape minuses. Nothing is perfect! Performance The main drawback often complained of is Symfony performance. Performance is important for high load real-time applications (when a lot of users interact with an app at the same moment, like in a social media). But Symfony grows accumulating best things from other technologies. One of the ways to enhance the performance is to migrate your application from PHP 5.6 to PHP7 which can make the app almost twice faster. Image source: https://www.cloudways.com/blog/php-5-6-vs-php-7-symfony-benchmarks/ 2. Longer to launch It is a common practice of Symfony to use design patterns, i.e. apply once created code for other parts of the system. This facilitates testing and further support but can reduce the speed of the development and delay the launch date. 3. Steep learning curve Symfony requires much more effort to learn than, for example, Laravel and Yii, which are more intuitively understandable. But it is one of the most stable frameworks that allows making complex solutions with many changes ahead. That is why the specialists in Symfony are highly valuable. Conclusion …The music has stopped. The audience stays silent for a moment to burst into applause the next second as the light is on again. People turn around to share their impressions with other spectators… A framework is aimed to simplify and speed up the development process. Symfony is a powerful and robust PHP framework. The projects created with this platform are highly extensible because of modular-based architecture. Use of bundles and components makes it a brilliant solution for websites and applications of any size and complexity. Though it is not easy to learn it, one can always find a good documentation, official courses, and support of the community. Speed and performance are not strong points of Symfony. But experienced coders can overcome the problems that may arise with high-loaded applications. No matter what framework you choose, don’t forget that it is just a tool. The success depends on whether the development is in good hands or not. Have more questions as for PHP frameworks? Write to us, at , and we’ll come to help! Greenice.net

7 Good Reasons to Use Symfony Framework for Your Project

Understand how the Symfony project evolves and why it is always worthy to get involved, but differently. In 2011, when I started my studies in computer sciences I learned the PHP using symfony 1.3, and I realized my very first student project on the beta of Symfony 2. At the time, we were moving from a fully integrated full stack framework with a back office provided to a framework that followed what was found in the Java community: besides, many components of Symfony2 were strongly inspired by JEE. PHP 5.3 had just come out and with it the ability to start designing object-oriented correctly. Fabien Potencier finally imposed this prerequisite (initially, Symfony2 required PHP 5.2.7), then Composer was used, and the documentation was complete and in English. Zend Framework 1 was losing his popularity, and no more startup was launched on it (in France) when on the contrary we saw appearing some “Symfony developer” job offers in the most successful french companies. A few years later, nobody could conceive of using anything other than Symfony to make a PHP project. Large Open Source projects have started to migrate on Symfony components: if it was not first, SensioLabs has talked a lot about because it is one of the biggest CMS on the market. EzPublish, PHPBB, PrestaShop and many others followed, some with a full stack framework approach and others by incorporating only a few software bricks. Drupal8 A vibrant and mature ecosystem The Symfony ecosystem has been enriched with ever more specialized solutions and responding to concrete business problems where the Standard Edition framework (so-called “full edition” or “meta-package”) has no scope. Have appeared among the most famous: The framework, easier to access and RAD-oriented framework; Laravel The platform and the entire associated ecosystem: , , , and ; Oro Oro CRM Akeneo OroCommerce Marello The eCommerce framework; Sylius The framework specialized in the design of API RESTful ; API Platform All of these solutions are extremely popular and require real Symfony skills. In 2017, what will be the place of Symfony Standard Edition in the ecosystem? Fabien Potencier decided that there would be no more Standard Edition after the 3.4. Welcome to Symfony Flex! Indeed, the creator of Symfony plans to replace it by a composer plugin called that facilitates the creation of Symfony applications. Flex The developer will have the responsibility to choose and add dependencies that he/she needs. The system works according to a “recipe/template” principle where YAML files describe what Flex should do: add a dependency, configure and register a bundle, or create a folder for example. Flex comes with two sources of “recipes”: validated by SensioLabs and a where everyone can add their recipes and make them available to everyone. an official source community source To put it simply, imagine that you want to realize a RESTful API in 2017 using Flex: the ideal would be to use API Platform. As API Platform is available via Flex you only have one command to run to get to a . complete application that works I have to admit that this approach pleases me a lot and that it reinforces the point of view that I defended for several years: a Symfony project not focused on its framework but the maintenance of software bricks of very high quality and well documented. Perhaps we had to wait for the relative success of Symfony 3 and the popularity of solutions like Akeneo for this awareness, but I’m convinced that the Symfony Core team is now moving in the right direction. If you are looking for more information about Flex, there is not yet any official documentation, but Fabien Potencier has produced that I encourage you to read and experiment since the composer plugin is compatible with Symfony 3.3 and usable independently of the Symfony 4 release ;) a series of articles about the project Ok! But why should I learn Symfony in 2017 then? In 2017, you don’t (necessarily) have to learn the Symfony framework, you have to learn and understand the Symfony ecosystem: How a Symfony application reads an HTTP request and returns a response; How a Symfony application builds and makes available objects (called “services”); How a Symfony application dispatches and listens for events throughout the application lifecycle, and how to look and create its events; Becoming familiar with these notions made you able to quickly be comfortable with API Platform, Akeneo, Marello, Sylius, Drupal8, Laravel, and the Symfony Standard Edition framework. What about the components? I am a huge fan of Symfony components: they are maintained by a big community, very well documented and evolve regularly. The learning or use of a particular component obviously depends on the project. Here is list of the most useful libraries: my The component: provides a complete console with arguments and options management, essential for PHP in CLI mode; Console The and components: they provide a better stack trace in case of error and the function as a replacement of ; Debug VarDumper dump var_dump The and components: they provide a nice API for searching and manipulating folders and files; Finder Filesystem The components: they allow the application to use functions that are not available, either because of the PHP version or the absence of PHP extensions; Polyfill- * All of these components work in “standalone” and are used in the most large PHP projects. So keep learning and investing in the ecosystem: Symfony (framework) is dead, long life to the Symfony project!

Why you should learn Symfony in 2017

Fabien Potencier, CEO of SensioLabs announcing SensioCloud, a Platform-as-a-Service for Symfony During the keynote address at SymfonyCon Berlin 2016, Fabien Potencier, CEO and founder of SensioLabs, announced . The offer combines the services of , , , and into one comprehensive package. SensioCloud, a new complete cloud offering focused on the development and runtime of Symfony applications Platform.sh Blackfire.io Fastly.com SensioLabs’ own support services A fully maintained stack at your fingertips Enable any service via a few configuration lines in a YAML file. SensioCloud supports PHP 5 and 7. Each service is deployed in its own custom, lightweight LXC container for optimal performance, stability and flexibility. Don’t see your service on the list? Ask for it, we’ll make it happen. Some of the key advantages include a diverse set of managed services, a Composer-based build process, Symfony optimized runtimes, massive scalability (top tiers can provision >300 CPUs and nearly 6TB of RAM for one application), and a 99.99% uptime guarantee for the entire stack — from CDN to PHP to Database/Cache/Search services). Fabien pointed out that other PaaS offerings can only provide individual SLAs on the component parts, not the whole offer. Availability of SensioCloud is imminent — early 2017 was the guidance given during the keynote. The SensioCloud team then proceeded to give demos on the expo floor to hundreds of interested Symfony developers. The title of the Keynote: “The State of Symfony in the Cloud” Fabien Potencier introduced SensioCloud by showing the history of Symfony’s efforts to be prepared for Cloud-first development and deployment. SensioCloud supports the provisioning, orchestration, configuration of rich services, such as PostgreSQL (example shown). SensioCloud will be available in early 2017 Showtime! 1,200 Symfony developers in attendance. A seriously hard-core technical crowd. Frédéric Plais, CEO of Platform.sh, tweeting the good news Anne-Sophie Bachelard of SensioLabs greeting the crowd and introducing Fabien. The Sulu team, long friends of Platform.sh, in attendance. The SensioCloud team sweetened up visitors to the booth by serving cotton candy.

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