A PHP framework is a set of functions and classes written in PHP that provides a starting point for developing web applications. Frameworks vary in directory structure, feature set, and documentation/support.

Why Use a PHP Framework?

As a PHP developer, it is frustrating to have to code projects over and over again from scratch. Many projects share common features such as mail functions, file handling, database connection, converting and translating text, and on, and on. By alleviating these common coding tasks, a good PHP framework allows a developer to focus more on custom business logic.

I am going to compare a few common PHP frameworks that I have used, feel free to add your own opinions and any frameworks I will inevitably miss.

Comparison of some PHP Frameworks I have used:

QCubed

QCubed is a community driven fork of Qcodo. I am personally no longer using Qcodo in favor of QCubed. QCubed has two main parts, ORM code generation and QForms. Generated code in QCubed follows the MVC pattern, although an actual controller is never generated. Generated code is very easily extended through basic object oriented PHP. A proper MVC file structure can be accomplished and QCubed can produce very high quality web applications. QCubed is not as well documented as some of the other frameworks, but its code generation is extremely powerful and growing stronger.

QForms are essentially PHP objects of HTML forms. They are defined by Mike Ho as “…stateful objects that maintain state from one post to the next.” QControls are PHP objects used to control form elements such as QTextbox, QPanel, QLabel, QButton, and QControls can even be combined and extended to create new QControls. Any QControl can have events assigned to it (click, hover, blur, etc.) that can trigger actions (PHP or JS functions), providing unlimited functionality using advanced AJAX.

ORM Code generation examines the data model and writes data model classes based on relationships it finds. It also writes draft HTML forms to provide basic CRUD functionality. A developer can simply run a codegen on a database and end up with a working application that can list, create, edit, and delete database entries without programming a single line. The drafts will need to be edited, of course, to provide custom logic, but they provide for very rapid prototyping.

More on QCubed.

Zend Framework

Extending the art & spirit of PHP, Zend Framework is based on simplicity, object-oriented best practices, corporate friendly licensing, and a rigorously tested agile codebase. Zend Framework is focused on building more secure, reliable, and modern Web 2.0 applications & web services. Zend is focused on using widely available web service APIs.
Features:

• An extensible and well-tested code base – easy to augment
• A flexible architecture – not locked-in to a rigid application structure
• No configuration files necessary to get up and running – or when maintaining and deploying your apps
• AJAX support through JSON – meet the ease-of-use requirements your users have come to expect
• Native PHP edition of the industry-standard Lucene search engine
• Zend Framework aims to be the premier place to consume & publish web services
• High-quality, object-oriented PHP 5 class library

More about Zend

CakePHP

Excellent documentation, simple to set up, easy to use and extend. Very well marketed, with cute names for things – For instance, applications built on CakePHP are considered “baked,” The CakePHP manual is called “The Cookbook,”  and the portal-like “Bakery” offers up-to-the-minute details about the CakePHP community.

I like CakePHP and it does its job very well. It is not as enterprise grade like Zend, but it is very thorough and the cute names have attracted a good sized community. Some pretty powerful sites are being “baked” using CakePHP.

CodeIgniter

A very lightweight and easy to implement framework. A good choice for newcomers to PHP and MVC. CodeIgniter provides a very thorough class library, as well as helper functions for common tasks. Not my favorite of the bunch, as I prefer QCubed’s code generation to the scaffolding of CodeIgniter and QCubed is just as robust in other aspects.

Zoop

Zoop has been in development since 2001 and in use for the last 6 years in a number of different production environments. While it predates the recent proliferation of PHP frameworks, it’s based on solid MVC principles, including separation of display, logic, and data layers. It’s designed to be efficient, modular, and extensible, striking a balance between lightweight and fully-featured. Zoop is the granddaddy of PHP frameworks, and as such is very solid. I would recommend Zoop to any experienced PHP programmer looking for a good MVC framework.

Symfony

Review Coming Soon…

Yii

Review Coming Soon…

Seagull

Seagull is a mature OOP framework for building web, command line and GUI applications. Licensed under BSD, the project allows PHP developers to easily integrate and manage code resources, and build complex applications quickly.

Many popular PHP applications are already seamlessly integrated within the project, as are various templating engines, testing tools and managed library code. If you’re a beginner, the framework provides a number of sample applications that can be customised and extended to suit your needs. If you’re an intermediate or advanced developer, take advantage of Seagull’s best practices , standards and modular codebase to build your applications in record time.

Once your development cycle is complete, use Seagull’s features for deploying and maintaining your apps locally and remotely. Check out the friendly and active Seagull community and see if Seagull’s a good fit for you.

Joomla

Joomla is considered firstly a CMS, but has been proven to provide a decent framework for PHP development. Current version is 1.5 and has come a long way since the days of Mambo.

Years ago, before the days of the huge Joomla and Wordpress boom, I recall looking into an enterprise grade content management system for Zestra Laboratories (before the purchase by Semprae Laboratories). The system I was interested in was built on JSP (JavaServer Pages) and had an extremely advanced GUI for the day and age, allowing you to manage the content directly from the front-end, much like Concrete5 now gives you the ability to do now free with open source PHP.

On a side note, Magnolia is also a very robust CMS with features such as Concrete5, Magnolia strives itself on being extremely simple though may lack certain features and a large community supporting it, though it is a very clean content creation and enterprise style publishing tool, the problem with Magnolia is that it just can’t keep up with what these PHP systems are capable of pulling off. But this blog post is not about the Magnolia CMS anyway, we are focusing on Concrete5, check out this video for a quickie on what Concrete5 is all about:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It seems that they have really brought together the ability for a basic blog user to be able to start beginning to create more advanced web applications directly without any developer expertise. The most impressive part of Concrete5 is the ability for you to logically understand what element it is that you are adding to the page visually, this is going to be a key part of the trend that I see web publishing following in the course of the coming years.

The only thing that I would like to see extended onto Concrete5 is the ability to create your own types of data models, data grids or other types of media and form controls. Since I haven’t spent much time in the back-end programming of Concrete5 yet, I can only assume that they have built it cleanly on an objected oriented architecture and have some form of API (Application Programming Interface) built into the application framework.

Being able to integrate something like Concrete5 with QCubed/QCodo would give the average user the ability to edit and create more advanced web applications as well as advanced database manipulation without the intervention of experienced programmers. Currently the only CMS that has been integrated into QCubed/QCodo is a module that integrates the QCubed PHP5 Framework with Drupal called QDrupal.

With the ability to extend Concrete5 with more AJAX based, user-centric tools, users will growingly have direct access to the way data is created and stored, and ultimately how web applications are born.

There are a few parts to QCodo/QCubed that speed up my coding time. First, I mentioned code generation. This is the strongest feature and is what originally drew me to QCodo. If you provide QCubed with your database information, you can have it scan your DB and write pretty clean “drafts” of OOP PHP code based on relationships and foreign keys. It will also generate draft QForms that can be used to perform basic CRUD functionality with the objects it has generated from the database.

Which brings me to the next feature that QCubed offers: QForms and QControls. QForms are as the developer puts it “stateful, event-driven objects.” What this means is that each QForm is basically an HTML form that posts back to itself and remembers its state from the previous posting. No sessions or cookies are used.

QControls are essentially PHP objects that have defined getters/setters that can be overridden or added onto.  The QForm is responsible for rendering the QControl as HTML and handling any events that are applied to the QControl. QControls can be nested and expanded on to create really powerful web applications.

The last part of QCodo/QCubed are QQueries. This is a shortcut way to perform SQL Queries in an object-oriented manner. QQueries can take in conditions and clauses to provide custom loading of objects in your application. For instance take the following logic:

Select all Projects where: the Project ID <= 2 AND (the manager’s first name is alphabetically “greater than” the last name, or who’s name contains “Website”)

<?php
$objProjectArray = Project::QueryArray(
QQ::AndCondition(
QQ::OrCondition(
QQ::GreaterThan(QQN::Project()->ManagerPerson->FirstName, QQN::Project()->ManagerPerson->LastName),
QQ::Like(QQN::Project()->Name, '%Website%')
),
QQ::LessOrEqual(QQN::Project()->Id, 2)
)
);

foreach ($objProjectArray as $objProject) {
_p(sprintf(‘%s (managed by %s %s)’, $objProject->Name, $objProject->ManagerPerson->FirstName, $objProject->ManagerPerson->LastName));
_p(‘<br/>’, false);
}
?>

This is much easier to read and understand than the SQL command required to perform the same function. Also, if you change your database source you won’t have to rewrite code, as long as the relational structure stays the same.

I highly recommend you check out http://examples.qcodo.com and http://trac.qcu.be/projects/qcubed/wiki/Tutorials to get a sense of how powerful this framework truly is.