PHP Frameworks

PHP Frameworks:

PHP is
finally getting the attention that i deserves, yes I have always
believed that PHP is one of those neglected languages, neglected
because they are used in abundance but there isn't enough programs or
as we call them frameworks to work on PHP. But that was until the
release of PHP 5. After the release of PHP, there is a range of
Frameworks available.

Today we review and understand closely the various frameworks available for PHP. Some of the most popular frameworks for PHP are:

1. The Zend Framework.
2. The Prado Framework.
3. CakePHP Framework.
4. Symphony Framework.

These frameworks are ofcourse the most popular ones and there are more
than 40 frameworks for PHP and it is very difficult to know which
framework suits you the best and will be the most productive for your
web development and enterprise goals. Ofcourse all these frameworks are
free and provide a host of services to satisfy almost all of the web
development needs of a web designer or a website owner. Some of the
most common features of all these PHP Framework are as follows:

• PHP 5: Thats obvious!
  All the frameworks support both PHP 5 version of the PHP.Only "The
  Prado Framework" support the PHP 4.x version of the PHP as well as the
  PHP 5 version of the PHP.
• Multiple DBs: All the above mentioned frameworks support multiple databases to be used without making any setup and configuration changes.
• Validation: All the four frameworks have an inbult validation and a filtering component which can be used.
• MVC: All the four frameworks have the MVC that is the Model View Controller setup.

So, these are the few components and controllers that are common in
most of the PHP based frameworks and therefore one should look out for
these components when downloading or using a PHP framework.

Now let us see a brief introduction about each of these PHP based frameworks and their salient features:

• Zend Framework:Zend
  Framework is a component based framework with components for almost all
  of the programming needs of a PHP programmer or PHP developer.

Some of the components in the Zend Framework are:

1. zend_acl
2. zend_auth
3. zend_cache
4. zend_config
5. zend_consolegetop and many more.

• Prado Framework: The Prado framework provides the following benefits for web application developers.

1. reusablility
2. Ease of use
3. Robustness
4. Performance
5. Team Integration

• CakePHP:

Some of the important features of CakePHP are as follows:

1. Model, View, Controller Architecture
2. View Helpers for AJAX, Javascript, HTML Forms and more
3. Built-in Validation
4. Application Scaffolding
5. Application and CRUD code generation via Bake
6. Access Control Lists
7. Data Sanitization
8. Security, Session, and Request Handling Components
9. Flexible View Caching

Like all other frameworks cakePHP is also component based framework.

• The Symphony Framework:

Some of the features of the symphony framework are as follows:

1. simple templating and helpers
2. cache management
3. smart URLs
4. scaffolding
5. multilingualism and I18N support
6. object model and MVC separation
7. Ajax support
8. enterprise ready

Thus these are the best options available for frameworks relating to
PHP and one should review all these features of all these frameworks
against his needs and choose the appropriate framework to work on!

Any suggestions and comments as always are welcome.

Pranav Bhat

http://comparelinux.com