paint-brush
Laravel Vs Symfony: Answering All The Questions To Make a Better Choiceby@hirenchauhan
702 reads
702 reads

Laravel Vs Symfony: Answering All The Questions To Make a Better Choice

by Hiren ChauhanSeptember 28th, 2022
Read on Terminal Reader
Read this story w/o Javascript
tldt arrow

Too Long; Didn't Read

Laravel is used for developing nearly 0.89% of the foremost one million world websites. There are nearly 1,35,974 websites that are built using Laravel while we are writing this. Laravel has nearly 71K stars while Symfony stands at 27.4K stars. Both frameworks are PHP-based, both support cross-platform functioning. Both frameworks provide testing tools and have built-in internationalization features. Both are open-source. frameworks provide database support, and text search support in both.

Company Mentioned

Mention Thumbnail
featured image - Laravel Vs Symfony: Answering All The Questions To Make a Better Choice
Hiren Chauhan HackerNoon profile picture



PHP is highly popular, and needs no introduction. But, so are the frameworks, Laravel, and Symfony. This blog plans on sharing detailed insights on the two frameworks, so that  developers can make a wise and accurate choice. We hope that we help you best in choosing the best as per your needs.


The two contenders here, Laravel and Symfony can lead to a hot discussion. The discussion here refers to, which one is more popular between the two. Well, according to the GitHub results, Laravel has nearly 71K stars while Symfony stands at 27.4K stars only. Well, this doesn’t conclude anything. The discussion goes much beyond the figures, and includes, pros, cons, similarities, etc.

Laravel introduction

It is an open-source framework that follows the model-view-controller pattern. Laravel is used for developing nearly 0.89% of the foremost one million world websites. To confirm, there are nearly 1,35,974 websites that are built using Laravel while we are writing this.


The highlight of the framework is that the functions are divided into separate components managed by the composer. This means, there is a divided source of code repository instead of one single code repository.


Laravel is easy to learn because of similar features to other PHP frameworks, Yii, Ruby on Rails, and CodeIgnitor. Developing a beautiful website with simple syntax is quite easy and quick using Laravel.

Symfony Introduction:

Symfony is again an open-source PHP framework based on projects such as Propel, Doctrine, Twig, Swift Mailer, etc. Same to Laravel, Symfony also has decoupled components. This means you can easily replace one Symfony component with another even from a non-Symfony project.

To our surprise, even Laravel uses nearly 14 Symfony components. We can say, ever since its birth in 2005, Symfony has evolved with time.

What are the similarities between Laravel and Symfony?

Needless to mention, both frameworks are PHP-based. Also, both of them support cross-platform functioning. Additionally, Symfony and Laravel extend support to multi-user and multi-language content. Also, you can find scaffolding of application, interfaces pattern, and text search support in both frameworks.


Both frameworks provide testing tools and have built-in internationalization features.


Laravel and Symfony both can be easily extended because of the CLI tool available.


These open-source frameworks provide database support.


In the next segment, we will look into the key differences between the two. Before we delve into the key differences, here is an outlook table that will give you a quick review of the differences.


Comparative segment

Symfony

Laravel

Date of release

October 2005

June 2011

Current version

Version 6.1

Version 8

GitHub stars

27.4K

71K

Flexibility

More flexible

Less flexible

Repository

Symfony repository

Laravel repository

License

MIT License

MIT License

Speed

Normal

Improved

Data Migration

Automatic

Manual

Data Modeling

Doesn’t require SQL Knowledge

Requires SQL knowledge

Framework

Web framework

Web Application framework

Original Developers

Fabien Potencier

Taylor Otwell


Well, we feel a tabular form of information would be easy to read and grasp. So here we go.


Laravel

Symfony

Modularity & Scalability

Laravel is based upon the MVC structure. Any deviation from MVC reduces its flexibility drastically. If you wish to change a code part, you need to do it entirely.

The framework provides many reusable components because of the packaged modular structure. You can share code across multiple apps. The code is well organized here.

Templating Engine

Laravel uses Blade, which allows code reusability and optimized performance

Symfony uses Twig as a Templating Engine. Twig is known for the development of more compact, legible templates.

Database Support

MySQL: YesDrizzle: NoOracle: NoPostgreSQL: YesSQLite: YesSQL Server: YesSAP Sybase SQL Anywhere: No

MySQL: YesDrizzle: YesOracle: YesPostgreSQL: YesSQLite: YesSQL Server: YesSAP Sybase SQL Anywhere: Yes

Database migration

One has to manually migrate data

Data migration occurs automatically. One just has to mention fields within the model.

Learning curve

Laravel is comparatively easy to learn & implement

Symfony is difficult to execute.

Security

Laravel has a straightforward security feature that can be at a risk

Symfony has a powerful security feature supporting a number of authentication methods.

Speed

Laravel development requires minimal coding which means the speed of development is faster

Symfony on the other hand, is slow in speed.

Data modeling

One needs to have SQL knowledge to execute Laravel

There is no such need for SQL knowledge. One can create a repository for each cell.

To Summarise

Laravel

It has a huge community of supporters to help you with any blockage. Laravel allows easy access to the newest version of PHP features and it is also compatible with third-party platforms & libraries.


On the downside, If the application is complex, it might take a few more seconds for loading. Also, if you want to shift to the latest version of Laravel,  you would  have to make changes in the code string.

Symfony

Symfony also has huge community support. Drupal, Magento, and eZPublish already use Symfony which means it can be trusted with your project. Unlike Laravel, the updates are easily accessible.


The downside of Symfony includes that it’s difficulty in learning PHP might divert your interest during web development. Symfony needs you to rebuild code for various purposes, which means you need to invest more time in testing and development may take longer.

When should you choose Laravel or Symfony

For speedy development, Laravel is the best option to go for. Also, the cost of Laravel app development is cheaper than Symfony. Hence, if you have a low budget, you should opt for Laravel.


Magic methods are eye-catchers of Laravel. It helps you in mitigating the hassle of writing long codes.


Symfony is suitable for complex projects  which means a project having a higher budget. Symfony supports personalization and allows you to add features at convenience. It consists of bundles where the developers can make changes instead of changing the entire project.

Conclusion

Symfony and Laravel frameworks are both user-friendly. However, each one of them has its individual cases where they can be implemented in the best possible way.

You should discuss your project requirements with your development partner and they will guide you in the best possible way.


Well, disclosing the truth, our personal favorite is Laravel.