PHP framework of intermediate complexity, in between CodeIgniter and Yii ?

Question

Something easy like CI (this means mandatory good, easy, up to date documentation). But also with some more features than CI.

Yii has lots of features, but it is also more complex (and it kind of forces you to have to use lots of it features). That means adding some functionality to your web-app takes three times as long because you have to figure out lots of new small functionalities of Yii.

It's kind of like the CI "gets out of your way" when it needs to, and Yii gets in your way, and if you don't do it its way, it breaks.

Features missing in CI that would be nice to have in this new "intermediate" PHP framework:

• Code generation (crud).
• Authentication.
• Access control.
• Layouts.
• Widgets.
• Easyer / automated pagination (like yii)
• easy uri parameters

Where Yii causes me problems:

It's like for every small task there is some inbuilt functionality (this is good), but, YOU HAVE to use the inbuilt functionality, otherwise bad things happen. (CI gets out of your way, but does it too much, Yii helps a lot, but is butting in too much at times, and it forces you to sift through its documentation so that you discover these functions without which you are not able to accomplish a task that would take four time less, in CI, or in a non framework app).

Is there something in between ?

(ASP.NET MVC could be 'it', but I don't know the language, so the effort to learn it would be greater than learning Yii php framework really well, so I am looking for a PHP Framework)

Answer 1

you could try kohana (especially coming from ci)

Answer 2

I am a fan of CakePHP. I feel it has the specs you provided. If you want something more cutting edge you can take a look at Lithium

Answer 3

You should check out the CI community, some of those extensions maybe have been written by someone else (I remember seeing Authentication and Components/Widgets somewhere)

Symfony is worth checking out. I personally don't like it much because they chose Prototype over jQuery for their ajax features, which is really annoying to use when you're used to jQuery.

Lithium might be good to check out too. However, it is php 5.3 only and you need to be really careful that this version of PHP is going to be supported on the server the site will be deployed on.

Answer 4

For what its worth, if you're looking for a PHP Framework that is like ASP.NET MVC then I think Prado is the closest thing you will find.

Answer 5

You could have a look at Qcodo / Qcubed. They are both easy to pick up and offer code generation / ORM

Easy way to create forms in an mvc kind of way.

Answer 6

See this list for good comparisson:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks#PHP_2

From a personal point of view, I would go with symfony because of it's

• rich features and
• great integration with many other already bundeled components (Doctrine, Swift Mailer,..),
• good (but at first complex) code generation that produces realy useable code to get you startet quickly,
• powerfull use of templating (that will be the point you mention under "layouts)
• many different, powerfull plug-ins, including Authentication & Access Control (it also has a plug-in to get jQuery support)
• one of the best tutorials that I've seen with a framework

Downside is a

• more complex structure,
• IMO wired file structure,
• a rather messy API documentaion compared to the tutorial

CodeIgniter is a nice framework if you don't want to create big apps but it lacks a great database integretaion and you already mentioned code generation.

Answer 7

I've used both CI and Yii (on my own projects if that makes any difference). CI was my first introduction to MVC, and I found it easy going because it let me use any crappy structure and code. I wrote two full sites in CI (www.insolvencynews.com and www.thebigeat.com if you want to see complexity.)

I had a look at CakePHP but got NOWHERE.

Then I moved on to Yii and, like you, I found it pretty tough and rigid. But I then found that it was so powerful and extensible that I was so much more efficient. When I needed to add a few new features to the old CI sites, it was faster to rewrite the entire sites on Yii than to code up the extra features in CI.

I can't recommend a framework in the middle, but I can recommend sticking with Yii. When you say Yii gets in the way, can you give an example? Looking at DB stuff (in ascending order of dependence on Yii):

1. you can code using PHP's core MySQL functions.

   $result = mysql_query($sql);

2. you can use Yii's DB abstraction layer.

   Yii::app()->db->createCommand($sql)->queryAll();

3. You can use Yii's ActiveRecord:

   Takeaway::model()->findAll();

Answer 8

I have found some resources that kindof solve the problem, because they contain examples (Milan Babuškov's sugestion helped focus on "the solution").

Yii playground - examples Yii cookbook - examples Yii blog tutorial - more examples

PS. there is also google - I find solution (and examples) the fastest this way - ex: implement + pagination + yii

Answer 9

I am a fan of Yii and i have some years with CI. It should be "Yii is in the middle of CI and Symfony" in my point of view. Also if you want Yii to do what CI can do assuming you are new to both then Yii is easier to learn! Only the advanced features of Yii will make you confused due to lack of samples (their document is good actually,if you spent enough time).

Now i moved from CI and Symfony to Yii and decide to stick with it (unless my clients ask specifically). CI's Expression Engine makes a little disappointed after 2.0 release and there is not many things new compare to the older version (maybe new price i believe). A new face join in CMS world is FlexicaCMS which is based on Yii is worth to look at. Check out the developer features it has (http://www.flexicacms.com/features.html) and you can learn Yii advanced features in its code

Answer 10

im very good in Raw PHP, where the project at hand became too much to handle i decided to move to zend, with too too much complexity i finally moved to YII which really reduced the cost and overhead time for project development and most importantly for me is the simple integration of jquery, widget and advanced-OOP.