InfoWorld review: Fabulous PHP frameworks
Zend Framework, Symfony, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, and other PHP frameworks conquer Web development with extensive features, powerful tools, and superior ease
By Rick Grehan
Contributing Editor, InfoWorld |
PHP frameworks at a glance, continued
| Databases supported | JavaScript support | Caching support | Debugging | Web service development support * | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CakePHP | ADOdb, Firebird, Microsoft SQL Server , MySQL, ODBC, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite | Yes (Prototype and script.aculo.us) | Yes (a cache helper) | Debug class for dumping variables, logging, and tracing. | Yes |
| CodeIgniter | Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, ODBC, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite | Experimental support in the development branch. | Yes | Can enable profiling on the output class (which can be used for debugging). Also has logging ability. | Partial (an XML-RPC helper class) |
| Symfony | MySQL, PDO, PostgreSQL, SQLite | Yes | Yes | Extensive debugging support. | Not directly. For SOAP/WSDL, use PHP native for SOAP and Zend Framework for auto-discovery. |
| Zend Framework | Firebird, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite | Yes (classes for Dojo and jQuery) | Yes | Includes a logging class and a debug class for dumping variables. | Yes |
| Lithium | Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MongoDB, CouchDB | Indirectly (embedded markup and conversion to JSON helps manipulation with JavaScript) | Yes | Yes | Not directly |
| Qcodo | Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite | Yes | Only internally (no HTML caching) | Partial (includes logging and exception-catching capabilities) | Yes |
| Seagull | Any database supported by PEAR::DB | Yes (AJAX provider class) | Yes | Yes (can override PHP's standard error handling) | Yes |
| Yii | Any PDO-supported database | Yes (jQuery integration) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
* Note: Web service support refers to SOAP/WSDL. Most frameworks will support RESTful Web services directly.
Copyright © 2011 IDG Communications, Inc.