Is zend framework stable?

Question

I need a framework for php. I've got few suggestion to use Zend Framework. What worries me is the Zend Framework api stability.

Do you know how stable ZF is? Is there any change list/migration plan from previous version. So that I can check how many breaking changes were introduced?

I need something so stable as django:

The release of Django 1.0 comes with a promise of API stability and forwards-compatibility. > In a nutshell, this means that code you develop against Django 1.0 will continue to work against 1.1 unchanged, and you should need to make only minor changes for any 1.X release

And later we can read:

We’ll only break backwards compatibility of these APIs if a bug or security hole makes it completely unavoidable

Answer 1

Why not check out the Release Policies:

1) A major release may contain any changes, including bug fixes, backwards compatible features and functionality enhancements, and backwards incompatible releases.

2) A minor release may only contain backwards compatible changes, including bug fixes and backwards compatible features and functionality enhancements.

3) A mini release may only contain bug fixes. Note that no new features, functionality enhancements, or API changes are allowed whatsoever. The framework should look and behave the same across mini releases.

and

We try to build mini releases on a bi-weekly schedule. For example, the current release is 1.7.7. It was released on 3/6/2009. The next release will be called 1.7.8 and will be released on 3/23/2009.

We try to build minor releases once every quarter. That is, each release will be available 3-month after the last release as a rule of thumb. This convention is flexible; for larger releases we may require up to 6 months of development time.

We do not target any periodic schedule for major releases, as backwards compatibility will be broken only when the value-add for ZF users has become very high. Schedules for major releases can span well over a year.

Also see the chapter on Product Releases on the Lifecycle Docs.

Note that the current version is 1.9 and 1.10 is currently in testing. The Wiki pages do not get updated with the version number too often. The release cycle is as described though.

Answer 2

I daresay ZF is an excellent framework when it comes to stability. The developers do everything to provide backward compatibility. Actually since more than a year there has been only one change that needed some adjustment at one point, which was the Autoloader.

Otherwise there have never been issues as far as I know and remember.

If there are new ways of doing something the manual always points out the new appraoch and what it is good versus the old approach.

There will be some bigger changes for ZF 2.0 though, as you can see in the roadmap.