The best PHP frameworks are the ideal solution that is frequently chosen when web development comes in the big picture. Now, the market is full of several PHP frameworks, but the hot picks of profound web developers in Dubai are Laravel or Symfony.
Even, mostly web development companies are rhapsodizing about the best PHP frameworks, and it often boils down to Laravel and Symfony. Millions of coders are working on these two frameworks because of their impeccable features, usability, and extended attributes.
Deciding with these two is considered a healthy option for your web development project but on the other hand a little daunting too – as both come along with pros and cons which you should be familiar with before you select anyone.
However, at first, it may seem a bit hard to call the shots for selecting one among Laravel or Symfony, especially when you are about to start working on your new project. If that’s the case, I have decided to help you prepare a quick rundown between these two to make an informed decision.
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The Basic Information – Laravel And Symfony
Let’s start with “Laravel”.
Laravel is a network that is open-source following a model-view-controller design pattern. It works on reusing the present components of different frameworks to develop a web app. It includes some basic features of PHP frameworks like Yii, Ruby on Rails, and Codelgniter.
And, if you have a comprehensive knowledge of PHP core then advance PHP Laravel will be a cakewalk of cake for you. It is well-known as a simple programming approach and minimizing the development time framework that proves to be great for developing a simple PHP application.
Now, its “Symfony” turn.
Symfony is a framework based on open-source PHP projects like – Propel, PHPUnit, Twig, Doctrine and Swift Mailer. Irrespective of the fact, it has some components like Symfony YAML, Symfony Event Dispatcher, Symfony Templating, and Symfony Dependency Injector.
Since its inception in 2005, Symfony upsurge as a more reliable and mature framework, it is mainly used for complicated enterprise projects.
So, from herein, I will compare both the frameworks, score them, and declare a winner. Along the way, you can access the features of the respective framework that’s ideal for you and your project.
The PHP Similarities
Both these Laravel and Symfony platforms provide cross-platform PHP frameworks and features that accelerate the development process of your PHP application. The ls scenery of the app helps in determining its structure, and the plugins used helps in extending the ability to add features quickly to the app.
From an experienced PHP development company perspective, both options start in the right place. What marks the subtle difference is the specific project needs and developers’ pre-requisite.
The PHP Differences
It’s easy to define differences by grouping similar features and advantages. Once categorized, a series of questions emerge out of nowhere. Unfurl the answer to these questions, and with every step, you will find the best option for your specific PHP application distinguishing itself.
1. Popularity
Although choosing a PHP framework based on the popularity basis alone is not a good option. But, undeniably there are some benefits a large-user base brings to the specific framework.
So, scaling on the metric of popularity Laravel is the famous PHP framework, but Symfony still yearns to end up high in the list at number two.
Popularity brings a large amount of training and support information online. For instance, let’s take Laravel, it provides information and training through Laracast that Symfony presently doesn’t provide. Although Symfony still shares great documentation, but not as exclusive as Laravel.
Laravel: 1
Symfony : 0
2. Performance
If talking about the older version, Laravel performed better than Symfony.
However, with the advancement in Symfony 4+ version, Laravel’s edge shrunk near to nothing. On the scale of evaluating performance Laravel once boasted might not be there anymore.
As long as you are working with the latest and greatest version of the PHP framework, performance is a toss-up. Thus, there is no change mark in the score.
Laravel: 2
Symfony : 0
3. Scaling and Modularity
Symfony includes reusable components, which are directed towards providing more modularity. It organizes the code in a cleaner way, making it a great fit for larger and more complicated projects. This is why it’s important to be sure of the professional experience before making a decision to hire website developer.
Also, Laravel’s strength resolves around MVC-based applications. Once you begin to wander away from the MVC paradigms, even Laravel can’t rescue you.
Using Laravel to get up and start running is for sure to leave your Symfony cohorts in the dust. All thanks to the set of pre-built dependencies. However, if you are building a large scale app, picking and choosing your dependencies and plugins make the application easier to enhance and scale.
For this parameter, the point goes to Symfony for modularity and flexibility.
Laravel: 2
Symfony: 1
4. Database Support
Both Symfony and Laravel provide Object-Relational Mapping for data access. With Symfony, Doctrine manages ORM and Eloquent provides ORM for Laravel. With ORM, data manipulation becomes simpler in the PHP framework.
Precisely talking, there are a number of database-related differences between the two most popular PHP frameworks.
If you are looking for out-of-the-box support, it’s important to look at what databases each PHP framework supports.
Laravel: MySQL, SQLServer, SQLite, PostgreSQL
Symfony: Drizzle, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere, SQLite, SQL Server
As seen through above, Symfony provides an additional option if you are going for breadth. Undoubtedly, Symfony wins this race.
On aligning with Symfony, the database migrations turn automatically. They just require simple definitions for the fields in the specified model. So, it seems like a quick win, but let’s look a little deeper.
And, if I talk about Laravel, database migrations are manual, but the good part is they don’t require defining the fields.
Data Modeling
With Laravel, analyzing and accessing the data requires more knowledge of SQL. But, the case with Symfony is quite different as it requires you to create a repository function for each call. For example, if your application works on a complicated database structure, that may show a large number of repository functions.
While the contrary, Eloquent directs your app to your database schema design. Transforming a column name could result in alterations throughout your codebase. Whereas, Doctrine and Symfony by extension use a mapper pattern, which helps you to delineate between the database schema and your business logic and objects.
Therefore, taking all of the data into account, I am stepping ahead with Symfony for the database related parameters.
Laravel: 2
Symfony: 2
Taking all of that data into account, I’m going to go with Symfony for this
5. Templating Engine
As you know “PHP itself is a templating engine”.
Nevertheless, providing additional templating engine proffers more advanced templating with minimum syntax. Using another templating engine helps keep the business logic in the PHP and presentation logic within the templating engine.
Whereas Symfony provides Twig as the default templating engine, Laravel provides a little more when compared.
Laravel, default templating engine consists a lot for everyone, Blade provides an advantage over Twig, as it follows code reusability that doesn’t exist in Twig. In addition, Laravel brings in Lumen, a sub-framework used for building API and microservices. Bonus!
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This makes laravel a top choice for experienced web developers in Dubai.
Laravel: 3
Symfony: 2
In The End… Everything Is About The “Final Score”
As by now, you would have unfurled the secret that there is no better technology that is ideal across the board. But, as per the score after strict evaluation, Laravel comes out to be the perfect choice for projects when you need to develop the app quickly and don’t want to spend too much.
It’s all about what is the digital challenge and which technology can be the best solution.
So, partner with the leading PHP development company to see which technology and framework fit the best for you. Experiment and play with the features that are most important to you. Lastly, I hope answering the most frequent questions in this blog would have made your hard choice become clear.
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