Best PHP Frameworks in 2024
With the evolution of modern software development technology, the tools and frameworks must also continue evolving to keep up with these changes. PHP is one of the most popular choices for web development due to its versatility, ease of use, and vast community support. It is also useful when the developers try to integrate automation testing with the application development and testing life cycle.
However, to properly utilize PHP’s full potential in web development, developers must choose the correct frameworks that complement not only the development requirements but also the preferences of the developers and testers. This can be challenging, considering that hundreds of such frameworks are readily available in the market.
So, in this article, we will explore the best PHP frameworks for meeting the standards of application development and highlight their benefits, features, and suitability for different requirements.
What is a PHP Framework
A PHP framework is a collection of pre-written tools and libraries that provide a structured foundation for creating modern web apps using the popular PHP programming language. These frameworks aim to streamline and simplify the web development process by offering standardized practices, reusable components, and conventions to follow.
To improve our understanding of the impact of PHP frameworks, let us take a quick look at some of its most essential components:
● MVC Architecture
Most PHP frameworks adopt the Model-View-Controller architectural pattern. Using these patterns, testers can separate the app logic into three interconnected components: models, controllers, and views.
● Routing
The PHP frameworks provide routing mechanisms to map URLs to specific controller actions. This approach allows the developers to define clean and logical URL structures for their applications.
● Templating Engine
Most PHP frameworks often include a templating engine that creates dynamic HTML content. This process makes separating the presentation layer from the application logic easier.
● Database Abstraction Layer
The PHP frameworks offer database abstraction layers to interact with the database securely and consistently. This approach supports multiple database systems and provides features like object-relational mapping for simplified data manipulation.
● Form Validation and Data Manipulation
PHP frameworks include various utilities for validating user inputs, sanitizing data and handling form submissions to prevent security vulnerabilities, such as SQL injections and cross-site scripting.
● Security Features
Modern PHP frameworks have built-in security features, including input validation, CSRF protection, encryption libraries, and authentication mechanisms. These features enhance the security of modern web applications.
● Session and Cookie Management
Finally, modern frameworks consist of various tools for handling cookies, managing user sessions, and implementing user authentication and authorization facilities. App development companies can customize users’ experiences on their web applications using this approach.
Most Useful PHP Frameworks for 2024
As mentioned, hundreds of different PHP frameworks are available in their market. So, to simplify the shortlisting process for the new developers and testers, we have mentioned some of the most famous names in this segment based on 2024 standards:
1. Laravel
Laravel remains one of the most dominant players in the PHP framework landscape. This framework is known for its elegant syntax, extensive ecosystem, and expressive ORM. It also has unique features like an eloquent ORM, blade templating engine, and artisan command-line interface.
This PHP framework also allows developers to rapidly build scalable and robust web applications. Laravel improved its security, performance, and developer experiences, making it ideal for both small projects and large-scale applications. It is also affordable to individual developers and small companies.
2. Symfony
Symphony also remains a powerhouse in the PHP framework ecosystem. This framework is renowned for its flexibility, stability, and modularity. Symphony has continued to evolve with new enhancements and features, including native support for HTTP/2, improved performance, and enhanced security features.
Moreover, Symphony’s component-based architecture allows developers to use only the necessary components. This approach suits various projects, from enterprise-level applications to microservices.
3. CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter will remain one of the most lightweight and efficient PHP frameworks. Multiple developers favor this framework for its small footprint and simplicity. Despite fierce competition from newer frameworks, CodeIgniter remains relevant due to its fast performance, ease of learning, and minimum configuration requirements.
To comply with 2024 application development standards, CodeIgniter has introduced updates to improve compatibility with the latest PHP versions, streamline development workflows, and enhance security features. These additions ensure it will continue to be popular among modern PHP developers.
4. Yii
Yii is among the most popular choices for developers seeking high scalability and performance in their PHP projects. With the start of 2024, Yii has refined its performance, including various enhancements such as enhanced security features, improved support for RESTful APIs, and optimized performance.
It also has a component-based architecture and powerful caching capabilities. These additions make it suitable for building complex web applications that require scalability, speed, and maintainability. This framework is beneficial when application developers are working on certain apps that undergo subsequent changes to add new features and change the existing ones.
5. Phalcon
Finally, Phalcon stands out in the PHP framework landscape for its unique architecture. This PHP framework was built as a C-extension to PHP rather than a pure PHP framework. Due to this unique approach, it has exceptional performance while maintaining low overhead. All these features are responsible for making Phalcon an attractive option for high-performance application development.
Phalcon will continue to improve its features, including enhancements to the ORM, increased compatibility with PHP 8, and improved documentation. Moreover, the official website will add various illustrative examples to elaborate on this framework’s unique features and methods.
Although Phalcon has a steeper learning curve than the other frameworks we discussed in this article, its performance benefits make it a compelling choice for performance-critical applications where the developer must maintain the app’s quality.
Best Practices for Using PHP Frameworks
While using PHP frameworks for web development, the developers must adhere to certain best practices to enhance the applications’ maintainability, efficiency, and security. For the ease of the new developers and testers, we have mentioned some of these practices below:
● Following Framework Conventions
PHP frameworks often include certain conventions and coding standards. These help developers maintain consistency across multiple projects. Therefore, testers must familiarize themselves with these conventions and follow them consistently to ensure the maintainability and readability of the code base.
● Using the MVC Architecture Property
As we mentioned earlier, most PHP frameworks natively provide the MVC architecture. Implementing this architecture will help keep the controllers thin and move business logic to the test models. It will also help keep the views focused on the presentation logic.
● Performing Secure Input Handling
Developers must sanitize and validate user inputs to prevent security vulnerabilities, including cross-site scripting, SQL injections, and cross-site request forgery. It is also vital to implement validation libraries or third-party packages to handle input validation securely within the application infrastructure.
● Parameterizing the Queries
When interacting with multiple databases, the testers must use parameterized queries or prepare statements to prevent SQL injection attacks. They should also avoid concatenating user inputs directly within the SQL queries.
● Performing Thorough Testing
Writing multiple test cases, including unit testing, integration testing, and functional testing, is essential to ensuring the application’s reliability and correctness. Developers can also utilize multiple tools and frameworks supported by PHP to perform automation testing and catch regression issues at the earliest stages of the development cycle.
Integrating cloud platforms to initiate test cases on thousands of real devices and browsers through remote servers is also wise. For parallel testing and to run tests on various devices and device models, you can also use cloud platforms like LambdaTest. LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that lets you run manual and automated tests at scale with over 3000+ real device cloud, browsers, and OS combinations. It can incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning to organize and execute test cases on multiple device combinations.
● Error Handling and Logging
It is crucial for the developers to properly handle errors and exceptions while running application testing using PHP frameworks. They should also log this information appropriately for debugging and monitoring performance. Most of the frameworks that we discussed in this article will provide native tools to log errors, debug information, and keep track of various warnings effectively.
Developers can move to cloud-based, as mentioned LambdaTest, for better test reports. This platform generates highly comprehensive test reports with multiple videos and screenshots. Using this information, developers can easily navigate to the application’s faulty element and execute the troubleshooting and debugging processes.
Therefore, proper error handling and logging mechanisms play a crucial role in reducing the development and testing period for the application. Finally, by keeping track of the previously detected errors, the developers can easily avoid them in future iterations of the web app.
● Dependency Injection
Developers must embrace dependency injection to manage dependencies and promote loose coupling between multiple components within the web application. It is also vital to use dependency injection containers provided by the framework for managing object creation and dependency resolution.
● Performance Optimization
Finally, developers must continuously monitor and optimize the application’s performance while it is being developed and tested using PHP frameworks. Some of the most efficient methods include identifying bottlenecks and profiling code. Developers can also integrate various performance optimization techniques, including eager loading, lazy loading, and code caching.
It is also essential to constantly monitor the testing code to ensure that it complies with the changing requirements of the web app and the industry standards.
The Conclusion
PHP will remain a popular choice for web development due to its diverse frameworks. So, whether developers prioritize ease of use, scalability, performance, or flexibility, there is a PHP framework that can suit their project requirements.
From the elegance of Laravel to the efficiency of CodeIgniter and the performance of Phalcon, each framework offers unique benefits and features. So, by choosing the proper framework for the project, developers can streamline the development process, improve productivity, and deliver exceptional web apps in 2024 and even in the coming years.
