PHP development has been more than catching the eyes of developers all over the world, since more than a decade now. The widespread fame and the wide adoption of this language comes mainly from its ability to deploy very complex applications with relative ease. With so many frameworks out there which have made PHP into such a popular server-side scripting language amongst PHP developers, the question still arises – which are the top PHP frameworks today?

Here’s our list of 5 frameworks that we think are ruling the world of PHP, in the year 2018:

Laravel

By far, if there’s one PHP framework that has hands down won the game popularity-wise, it has got to be Laravel. It was introduced in 2011, and it has since provided developers with an ecosystem which makes the development process all the more easier and faster. The Features of Laravel PHP framework ensure a rapid deployment of programs; especially its amazing engine – Blade – makes it possible for the developers to cache, authenticate, queue, etc. without a hassle. Laravel applications are known to be elegant as well fast. Some of the lost recent additions to them have been Laravel Horizon, Laravel Dusk, as well as Laravel Echo. This framework has added the element of simplicity and readability for the new developers to feel instantly at ease; while the elegance of this language is what attracts the well-seasoned developers to time and again come back to Laravel.

Phalcon

The MVC, that is the Model-View-Controller architectural design pattern which has been employed by Phalcon PHP framework makes it novel in many ways. Right here, we’re looking at what is a full stack PHP framework, which was built as an extension to the programming languages C and C++. That itself makes it an easy to use language, which carries the speed of C and C+, and is also very well documented.

Symfony

When we think of Symfony PHP framework, some of the many phrases that come to mind are – ‘high performance’, and ‘extremely stable’. A widely popular framework, it lets developers work with reusable PHP codes and components. Large scale enterprises find Symfony especially helpful in their web development processes. The reusable libraries offered by this PHP framework have especially caught the attention of a huge community of developers everywhere. These libraries do a great job of assisting with authentication, configuration, templating, and other such tasks.

Zend Framework

Another robust PHP framework is Zend, which is primarily used for projects that are more complex and of enterprise-level, which further need to be rich with features like database connection wizard, drag-and-drop editor which supports HTML, instant online debugging, CSS and JavaScript, cryptographic coding tools, and so on.

CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter PHP framework has been specifically built for developers who require a toolkit that is more on the simpler and elegant side. It is perfect to help them build web applications full with rich set of features. A powerful framework, it is amazing to see how it is so lightweight, and also straightforward as it makes a hassle-free installation easily possible, while requiring minimal configuration. What’s also unique about it, is that CodeIgniter instead of being strictly adherent to an MVC design pattern, instead has in that Views and Models optional, while keeping Controller classes a must.