Laravel Vs. Symfony Vs. Yii: Which PHP Framework is the best for your business?

Ask any website developer who is their most favorite website application programming language for website development.

The answer would be PHP.

Since its inception, PHP has carved a niche for itself by offering some unparalleled benefits to developers. As a result, PHP is the most loved and preferred programming language among developers worldwide. It is an open-source, free, and feature-rich server-side programming language with advanced plugins and templates to build high-quality, secure, robust, and intuitive web applications. In addition, the recent PHP 7 version is more stable and superior to others.

As of now, 82% of websites are made with PHP programming language. This is the power of PHP that rules website development.

There are many notable PHP frameworks available to choose from when you are looking for PHP website development. However, as a business owner or a website development service provider, you might get confused about hiring Laravel development services or Symfony or Yii.

As you read the article till the end, you will have a clear idea of which PHP framework is the best for you. This is because we have discussed all three PHP frameworks in detail to give you insights about them and help make the right decision.

However, before we delve into these PHP frameworks, let’s discuss something about PHP and why you should hire PHP development services for your website project.

• One of the best things about PHP frameworks is that they make development faster than other frameworks and programming languages. In addition, the phenomenal CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations help developers to build highly functional, feature-rich, and visually impressive websites that offer superior user experience.
• Another reason to choose a PHP framework is its famous Model-View-Controller architecture. Here, developers can divide a website into models, views, and controllers. It also allows developers to scale different systems easily and effortlessly.
• It is a cost-efficient choice as PHP is open-source and free. Anyone can use it for free. For startups or enterprises with budget constraints, PHP is bliss.
• PHP empowers developers with the popular DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) theory. As a result, developers have to do minimal coding to get maximum outputs.
• PHP frameworks are better when it comes to website security. You can rely on their security measures. As a result, you can mitigate security risks to a great extent.

Let the battle starts.

As discussed in this post, we will discuss the three main PHP frameworks that have set benchmarks by offering crucial benefits to developers to help them build superior websites.

Before discussing various technical components and comparing these three PHP frameworks for each component, let’s briefly discuss these three frameworks.

Laravel

Founded by Taylor Otwell in June 2011 to counter CodeIgniter, Laravel, in just no time, became the talk of the town. Later on, Laravel was turned into a comprehensive MVC framework with outstanding features such as LTS, ORM, Scheduler, Bundles, and Dependency Manager Composer.

The best thing about Laravel is it simplifies complex web development tasks such as authentication, caching, and routing. Here, developers have a great developing experience without compromising the functionality of the application.

The latest 8.3.0 Laravel version is more stable and has a set of new features to mention, such as Laravel Jetstream, Migration Squashing, Tailwind CSS, and many more. So while hiring a website development company, ensure that they offer Laravel development too.

Symfony

Though Symfony was founded in 2005, the more stable Symfony version came late in 2007, and the 2nd version called Version 2 came in 2011. The latest version of Symfony called 5.1.3 was released in July 2020. The official maker of Symfony is SensioLabs, a French service provider.

Where Laravel is a simple MVC framework, Symfony is not. It has reusable PHP components, a web application framework, a Philosophy, and a community of more than 300,000 developers. However, their online forum is read-only, where you can read different questions and their answers.

You will be surprised to know that Symfony components are used in different frameworks such as Magento, Drupal, PrestaShop, Joomla, and Laravel. So if you have a giant, complex enterprise project, Symfony is a PHP framework to choose from over other frameworks.

Yii

Yii is a highly secure, high-performance, and fast web development framework founded by Qiang Xue in 2008. The main highlight of Yii is its Composer Dependency Manager, which handles various installations and dependencies.

Developers prefer Yii due to its another feature called jQuery integration. With this feature, even newbie developers can learn Yii instantly and start developing web applications easily and effortlessly. Yii also uses different components for rapid application development. Hire the best Yii development services provider to develop secure, robust, and customized web applications.

Laravel vs. Symphony vs. Yii — Detailed comparison based on different parameters

Let’s start the comparison between these three powerful PHP frameworks by discussing some common features.

1. Templating Engines

To create a web application, developers have to write front-end code. Here, Templating engines play a role. They minimize developers’ efforts and time by offering features such as automatic HTML escaping and filters. As a result, Templating engines make the web development process smooth sailing.

Symfony Twig Template System

Twig is a powerful, modern templating engine that helps developers write clean, crisp, and concise code.

Laravel Blade Templating System

The Blade has another advantage over other templating systems. Here, Blade allows developers to use PHP code in the views. Thus, although it stores the files in the .blade.PHP extension., it has zero overhead to application performance.

Yii Default Templating System

Here, there is no default third-party templating system to be used. On the other hand, developers decide which templating system to use for writing code. Mainly, developers use Twig or Smarty as templating engines.

Conclusion

Not one framework is superior to others. All three frameworks use templating engines. While Symfony and Laravel have their default templating systems, Yii does not have any pre-defined system.

2. Framework Differences

When it comes to making these frameworks, all three PHP frameworks were created differently. Here, Symfony offers the best modularity as it works on reusable components and uses the model and controller for web development.

On the other hand, Yii is based on pure MVC. Symfony supports MVC, but not to a great extent.

Furthermore, the real, noticeable difference is the modular design. Symfony is the best framework for the modular framework as it allows developers to use 30 components in a modular fashion. Yii is also utilizing components, but not to a great extent like Symfony.

Developers agree that Symfony is a far better option when it comes to developing challenging and complex projects.

Lastly, Laravel is not the right option when it comes to a modular approach.

Conclusion

Hire Symfony development services if you are looking for a modular framework. However, if your project is simple and does not have any complexities, you can choose Laravel and Yii.

3. Installation

Installation should be simple, linear, and streamlined. Unfortunately, when it comes to installation, all three frameworks have multiple installation procedures.

For package handling, developers mostly use composer, and it is a great choice. All these PHP frameworks can be installed with composer.

To install Symfony, the Composer PHP dependency manager is used to handle components. On the other hand, you can use the archive method to install frameworks.

Once the installation is done, you will get a web app and a template in the case of Yii. On the other hand, you will have a demo app to start your work in case of Symfony installation.

When it comes to Laravel, you can install it in two ways-

You can use Composer create-project

You can use Laravel Installer.

Your Laravel development services provider will suggest to you the best way to install Laravel.

Conclusion

There are no winners here. All three frameworks are easy to install and user-friendly.

4. Website Development Pace

We all want to develop web apps as quickly as possible. Hence, we choose frameworks that can offer rapid development without any complexities and errors. Enterprises and businesses always want to get a competitive edge in the market by putting their products first. Getting there first is all that matters to them.

Which framework to choose when you are looking for rapid development? Well, you can choose any of them for rapid development. However, all three PHP frameworks pass with great numbers when it comes to rapid development.

However, if you have to take one name, we would like you to choose Symfony. The main reason is the strong and responsive Symfony community.

However, Laravel has also been growing rapidly and getting there, but still has a lot of time to reach there. One thing that favors Laravel is its easy learning curve. You can find a lot of materials for Laravel online. As a result, Laravel is easy to learn and code, and also the possibility of making errors is less.

When it comes to Yii, it also excels in all the departments. For example, code scaffolding helps developers to write code faster and make development rapidly.

Conclusion

Here, all three frameworks excel, and you cannot say who the winner is. Symfony has great community support, Laravel is easy to learn and implement, and Yii pushes for rapid development.

5. Performance

Yes, it is also a factor worth checking, don’t you agree?

When you are using an application in real-time, the performance of the app matters a lot. Take an example of any social networking site. They run in real-time and hence, depend a lot more on performance.

If you are looking for a high-performing application, Yii is the name to remember. It is the fastest among all three PHP frameworks. Hire a website development company that also offers Yii development services.

On the other hand, Laravel and Symfony don’t excel when it comes to performance.

Conclusion

Yii is the winner here. Unfortunately, Laravel and Symfony cannot match with Yii when it comes to performance.

6. Database Support

Symfony 2 wins as it supports various databases such as NoSQL, Dynamodb, and more when it comes to database support. Yii and Laravel also support databases but not more than a few.

7. Community Support

An active, strong community helps developers to solve issues and address vulnerabilities. Hence, the framework you choose must have a good, active community.

Now, Laravel, Symfony, and Yii are all open-source frameworks with regular updates and features added regularly. Therefore, choosing a framework with a helpful community will give an added advantage.

Symfony has a strong and constructive community compared to the other two frameworks. Laravel has a growing community similar to Yii.

You can choose any of these PHP frameworks, but if you have to name one framework with a strong community, Symfony is the answer.

Wrapping Up

You can hire professional Laravel development services or Symfony or Yii. All three PHP frameworks are excellent, with some unique features and functionalities. They will ensure rapid web application development and make the job of developers easier and effortless. Ensure that you choose the best web application development company that has earned some excellent reviews and has a good team of PHP professionals who can help you deliver a customized, feature-rich, and impressive web application to achieve your business goals.