There are a lot of decisions to be made when you start out with your first web design and development project, and probably one of the most important considerations will be, “which tools should I use for building my site?” You will hear plenty of advice from others about this, but the truth is that there is no “one size fits all” solution. Between choosing a language like SQL or PHP, deciding whether to develop with a Linux or Windows machine and selecting one of thousands of different development tools and IDEs that exist — it can seem daunting!
One of the most important aspects of web-application development is obtaining proper tools for easy and speedy functioning. Not all web-application software tools are equal, some are complex and difficult to understand. Here is a list of popular software applications that can help you in building relational database-driven websites more efficiently.
Zend Studio
HTTP://STATIC.ZEND.COM/CMSDATA/STUDIO-PRODUCT-PAGE/ZS-13.6_WELCOME_PAGE.PNG
zend.com
Zend Studio is an IDE that takes PHP development to the next level. It has a robust set of features and can deploy to any server including servers in the cloud. It claims to be optimized for PHP 7, which is significantly faster than previous versions. Zend Studio is a great tool for companies of any size.
Key features
- Extensive Eclipse plugin capabilities
- Deploy to the cloud, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS
- Deploy seamlessly to Zend Server. Zend Server implements continuous integration and robust security features
Cost
- Personal license: $89
- Basic license: $189
- A free trial is available for download
- Zend Server is available as an offering on Azure
XAMPP
XAMPP.org
Experienced developers are familiar with Apache solutions. XAMPP is a development platform created by the Apache Friends organization. It is meant for most organizations that require a MySQL database solution. It may be overkill for startup companies, depending on their requirements.
Key features
- It is one of the oldest development platforms for PHP. It has the benefit of combined experiences of all the participating developers for over 10 years
- Easy-to-Install (via wizard)
- Part of Apache family of products
- MySQL and Perl are part of the installation
- Can install CMS components on top of XAMPP installation (via Bitnami)
- Easy control panel for all the components included
Cost
- Open source (free)
Retrace
Stackify.com/retrace
Retrace goes beyond standard APM (Application Performance Monitoring) to give developers all the tools they need in one easy to use solution. It originally supported only Java and .NET, but will soon support PHP. It’s enhanced log and error tracking feature make it stand out from the rest. It is cost-effective, too. The tool is great for teams diagnose, improve, and accelerate application performance.
Key features
- View related logging to an exception to quickly find and fix issues before your customers do
- Identify which part of your application stack is the bottleneck and which web requests are being affected
- Track and monitor all key application & server metrics
- Capture critical details about what your code is doing with code profiling
Cost
- 14-Day free trial
- $10 per month for non-production servers
- $25 – $50 per month per production servers
Zephir
zephir-lang.com
Zephir is considered a code-enhancement tool, but it’s actually a programming language in itself. It gives PHP coders the ability to create functions that are compiled but run by the PHP engine. PHP is an interpreted language, so the compiled nature of Zephir creates faster components than native PHP functions. This tool is geared more towards intermediate developers. Organizations of every size could find this product to be beneficial.
Key features
- Creates functions in a language similar to C.
- Components are compiled as shared libraries for quicker runtime
- No access to pointers. Pointers can cause problems for developers, and Zephir doesn’t allow them.
Cost
- Open source (free)
Laravel
Laravel is one of the most popular PHP frameworks for web development with 64k+ stars on GitHub. Though it ranks 7 on PHP Benchmarks list of top-performing web development PHP frameworks, it tops our list given its huge community, rich feature set, and ease of use.
Why should you consider Laravel?
- Open source, huge community, Extensive documentation, Zero overheads for CFOs, LTS
- Performance, Security & Scalability, faster-time-to-market
- Rich off-the-shelf features
- Built-in access management features for easy authentication & user management
- Easily integrate with popular email services like Amazon SES, sendmail, etc., Delivering messages through SMS/ Slack is also possible.
- In-built Eloquent ORM to convert data between incompatible type systems. Eloquent ORM is an API interface to easily interact with the database. Developers don’t need to write complex queries.
- Bundle packaging system and composer dependency manager for integrating framework agnostic packages to your PHP web development project. You may use ‘Packalyst,’ which is a huge collection of Laravel PHP packages, 1500+ in total.
- “Reverse routing” for linking and routes, CLI interface, “Blade templating engine” for designing templates, “RESTful controllers” for request handling, in-built “PHUnit Testing,” “Lazy collection,” “Database seeding,” “Real Time-event broadcasting,” “background processing” are some other features that make development work with Laravel an easy-peasy experience.
These are the reasons it is considered among the best PHP frameworks for website development.
Who uses the Laravel framework for their web applications?
- Mastercard
- Razorpay
- Olx
- Wattpad
- TransferGo
- 9GAG, and 3000+ companies
Why explore Laravel framework alternatives for web development?
- No built-in support is available in RoR or Django framework.
- Easy to start, complex to master.
- Usual open-source LTS issues, i.e., migration issues and incompatibility of newer versions with older ones.
Slim
Unlike the other web development PHP frameworks mentioned above, Slim, as the name goes, is a PHP micro-framework for web development. Are you aware of micro-frameworks? The ones listed above are full-stack frameworks. Slim, with 10k+ stars on GitHub, is a minimalistic web application and API development framework. Basically, this means you will only have the recipe and won’t get any ready-to-consume functions. In a full-stack framework, you get components, classes, interface for authorization, authentication, routing, paging, database operations, etc. In micro-framework, you get bare minimum support for HTTP requests and routing requests to appropriate controllers. Then why choose a micro-framework? Because it gives you flexibility and high-extensibility.
What are the features of Slim?
- Efficient, fast routers – Slim ships with powerful ROUTER. This maps routes to specific HTTP request handler methods and URLs. Router natively supports different URL types, including the ones with parameters and patterns. Pattern-based URLs are commonly implemented in e-commerce apps.
- PSR-7 Support – It’s necessary to implement PSR-7 implementation in your Slim project.
- Extensible with first-party PHP components and third-party PHP components on packagist.
Who uses Slim for their web applications?
- Gamned
- Bootiq
- AgriTask
- GreenBot
- HHEY
Why to explore alternative web development frameworks?
- If you need a full-stack framework.
- Steep learning curve for complex projects.
- For large projects, microframeworks are not suited. No point in reinventing the wheels.
CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter is a rapid web application development framework with a ridiculously small size. CodeIgniter 4, the latest version of CodeIgniter, is a mere 1.2 MB in size. Like Laravel, it’s open-source and boasts 18k+ stars on GitHub. Just because of how bare-bone it is, we have included it in the second position. Like several other frameworks, CodeIgniter provides a set of libraries and an intuitive interface to accelerate PHP web app development. Currently, this is not tracked by PHPbenchmarks.com but is considered among the best PHP frameworks for website development.
What are the features of CodeIgniter?
- Server requirements
- Codeigniter framework v4 requires PHP 7.2 or above.
- Supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite3
- It is partly PSR-compliant. This means it follows PHP standard recommendations for class and file naming standards, implements autoloading and logger interface, but doesn’t strictly follow caching or HTTP message interface.
- Easy to get started. You may directly download CodeIgniter, or you can use composer to install it. Consider it as the “create-react-app” of PHP-CodeIgniter. All you need to do is execute the below command to get started with CodeIgniter:
- CodeIgniter applications can be built using MVC architecture and adhere to object-oriented programming practices.
- It provides classes for FTP, image manipulation, email sending, user-agent, unit testing, security, encryption, caching driver, throttling, typography, pagination, form validation, etc. It also provides two tools, i.e., Timer & Iterator, for benchmarking your PHP application.
- You can carry out feature testing by extending FeatureTestCase or FeatureTestTrait class. The template for writing test cases looks as below-
Who uses CodeIgniter for their web applications?
- Sprout Social
- Buffer
- Grindr
- 3M
- Geekyants
- Accenture
- Ola
- Remitly
- Amplify
- BigBazaar, and 1700+ others
Why explore alternative web development frameworks?
- No templating engine
- No official stand on LTS versions
- No in-built authentication, authorization features
- Developers have to write their modules from scratch, while in other best PHP web frameworks like Laravel, a rich set of in-built ready-to-use modules are available.
Symfony
PHP Benchmarks rank Symfony at number 3 in the list of PHP frameworks for web development. With 24.5k+ GitHub stars, Symfony is not just a PHP web development framework but also provides a set of 50 stand-alone reusable PHP components for faster web app development. Using Symfony, you can develop web applications, microservices, and APIs too. With commercial support from SensioLabs, Symfony stands ahead of many on the list.
What are the features of Symfony?
- 50+ decoupled components easily installable using composer.
- You’ve ‘Lock’ component for managing access to shared resources, ‘Routing’ for obviously implementing routes, ‘Guard’ for creating complex authentications, ‘MIME’ for manipulating MIME messages and creating advanced emails, ‘Security’ for advanced authorizations, ‘PHPUnit Bridge’ for test reporting.
- Symfony uses open-source Doctrine ORM for database operations. It’s a great alternative to writing repetitive SQL code.
- Symfony supports a diverse set of databases MySql, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server, and SAP Sybase, etc.,
- Though PHP itself is a templating language, Symfony provides Twig, a fast, secure, and flexible templating engine. It makes templating concise through its template-oriented syntax. For example, printing default value while looping over an empty array looks as compact as:
This is why it is counted among the best PHP frameworks for website development.
Who uses Symfony for their web applications?
- BlaBlaCar
- Spotify
- Magento
- Statista
- Practo
- Naukri.com
Why explore alternative web development frameworks?
- For simpler projects, Laravel would make more sense.
- Laravel beats Symfony in performance.
ScriptCase
ScriptCase.net
HTTP://CDN2.SCRIPTCASE.NET/HOME/IMG/SCRIPTCASE-APPS-HOME.PNG
ScriptCase.net allows developers to quickly develop web-enabled applications. These application support connections to databases and report generation. The software allows you to go from prototype to production in a matter of seconds. The cost may prohibit smaller companies from using it. Therefore, it is geared for mid-sized companies.
Key Features
- Connects to most major database engines
- Generates charts including pivot tables
- Create interactive reports
- Export common formats such as PDF, XLS
Cost
- 20-day free trial
- Starter – $279.20 per year (single database only)
- Professional – $319.20 per year
- Enterprise – $479.20 per year
Sublime Text
SublimeText.com
There are reasons to use a text editor over an IDE. Sometimes, an IDE can be overkill for certain projects. Further, when developers are first learning a language, an IDE can be a crutch to their learning. This text editor is great for startup companies who do not have large budgets or large-capacity servers.
Key features:
- Go-to-anything feature – can jump to files, text, or lines instantly within the editor
- Split editing
- Simultaneous edits – can change multiple instances of text or code together
Cost
- One-time charge of $80.
Eclipse PDT
HTTP://WWW.ECLIPSE.ORG/PDT/IMG/SHOT1-MIN.PNG
eclipse.org/pdt
It’s getting difficult to classify a tool like Eclipse as an IDE. It’s become so much more. Eclipse was created for developers working in Java code. It has been extended to include other languages like PHP. Although this tool is open source, it may be overkill for startup companies. It uses up a fair amount of computing resources that could be scarce for smaller companies.
Key features
- Code profiling in PHP
- Formatting of code
- Syntax highlighting
- Code templates
- Unit testing
- Debugging
- Content assist
Cost
- Open source (free)
CakePHP
CakePHP is an open-source web development PHP framework. It’s ranked 6th in PHP Benchmarks, just above the Laravel web development framework. The newly released v4.0 comes with a renovated skeleton design and provides APIs to enable developers for rapid application development. On GitHub, it has 8.3k+ stars and 555 contributors. For commercial support, you have cakeDC. CakeDC is the organization behind CakePHP. You can build highly secure and scalable web applications, including social networks, eCommerce, and online collaboration platforms using CakePHP.
What are the features of CakePHP?
- It adheres to MVC architecture for PHP-powered web application development.
- Supports other popular design patterns like Associative Data Mapping, Front Controller, etc.
- Supports other popular design patterns like Associative Data Mapping, Front Controller, etc.
- You can leverage code generation and scaffolding features for faster prototype development. Scaffolding refers to techniques to easily access databases or generate project code using certain high-level tools.
- Like many other web development frameworks in this list, the CakePHP web development framework also gets shipped with all batteries included. You have ready-to-use Caching, authentication, validation, internationalization, database APIs features.
- Minimal configuration required. No need for YAML or XML config files.
- You get paid support if required.
- You’ve Namespace cake/ORM with classes for
- Eager-loading (EagerLoader)
- registry/factor tables (TableRegistry)
- Handling and loading of construction behavior objects (BehaviorRegistry)
- Converting array data into entities (Marshaller)
This makes it count among the best PHP frameworks for website development.
Who uses CakePHP for their web applications?
- Hyundai
- BMW
- Blendtec
- MIT
- Billabong
- Edureka
- House Party
Why explore alternative web development frameworks?
- Abrupt migrations.
- If you’re building performance-critical applications. It’s not like CakePHP’s performance is not good, but if performance comparing websites have ranked other frameworks to be better performing, you must consider their candidature.
Phalcon
Phalcon is a platform-agnostic ridiculously fast web development PHP framework delivered as a C-extension. It provides high performance and low resource consumption. On GitHub, it has scored 10k+ stars and has 242+ contributors.
What are the features of Phalcon?
- Low overheads for MVC architecture web applications – It is compiled to the native platform and is not interpreted.
- The C-extensions classes and functions are loaded with PHP on the webserver as the daemon process starts.
- You can build both single and multi-module MVC applications, as depicted in the image above.
- You can leverage dependency injection features, autoloader features, phalcon ORM for playing with DB records.
- It natively supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite.
- You have Phalcon query language for writing queries, Phalcon transactions to ensure data integrity.
- The Phalcon cache component supports backends like Redis, Memcached, Mongo, etc., for quick access to pre-processed data.
- Form-builder, flash messages, VOLT templating engine, translation components are other features worth noting.
These are the main reasons to consider Phalcon among the best PHP frameworks for website development.
Who uses Phalcon for their web applications?
- SocialVeo
- KingHost
- Proshore
- Urban Sports Club
- PlaceOnAir
- ESCHER
Why explore alternative web development frameworks?
- Not ideal for shared hosting.
- No C know-how is required, but if a critical framework level issue arises, you need to debug in C.
- More Popular framework alternatives with huge communities are available.
Conclusion
PHP is a free server-side scripting language originally designed for web development, but also used as a general-purpose programming language.