Experience with CodeIgniter 2 vs Kohana?

Question

Derek Allard recently announced that new projects should use CodeIgniter 2.0 whose code is well baked and it is fully PHP5.

What concerns me though is the process seems ad-hoc, there was no beta though he recommends this as being stable for all future code and it is still making updates off 1.x instead of a rewrite.

There is also little discussion of it (no questions on SO either) and I am not sure how sure about its performance and architecture.

Anyone have first hand experience of CI2? Or give an account of how it compares to Kohana?

The only reason I have shied away from Kohana is the poor documentation and the fact that each major release (2.1 to 2.n) requires updating your code because they don't maintain backward compatibility--it is the first I have heard of public API/framework that breaks backward compatibility willy nilly.

Answer 1

I am an avid CodeIgniter user and certainly will not be upgrading to 2.0 until it becomes a stable release (go onto the main website, its still offering 1.7.2 to download).

Kohana is a port of CI that someone decided to improve upon. I know many people use Kohana but its just a matter of choice.

Me personally I am sticking with CI 1.7.2 and even when 2.0 gets released I probably won't upgrade straight away. As they say if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Answer 2

CodeIgniter 2.0 is very stable at there point, but there are a couple of 'gotchas.' (Models now extend CI_Model, etc.

There is nothing wrong with using CI 2.0 and there are several project already doing so (PyroCMS, CloudIgniter, etc.)

I have been hearing some things about Kohona 3.0 lately, and I hear it's pretty exciting stuff, haven't played with it personally though.

Answer 3

whose code is well baked

Using code is that stoned is a bad idea!

The only reason I have shied away from Kohana is the poor documentation and the fact that each major release (2.1 to 2.n) requires updating your code because they don't maintain backward compatibility--it is the first I have heard of public API/framework that breaks backward compatibility willy nilly.

This is changing with version 3.0; You can assured a lot of thought has gone into how it's tested and released. You can read all about that here: Development Process Change.

Unit tests are also being written so the problem of API breakage is reduced. I believe the code coverage is over 60% now, see for yourself at the Kohana Testing Branch. Where are CodeIgniter's unit tests? ;-)

Yeah, I concur about the docs. The best you can do is either visit the Kohana message board, it's IRC (#kohana on Freenode) or the unofficial wiki.

Have fun with whatever you choose.

Answer 4

CodeIgniter 2.0 is perfectly stable to work with. I am using it for PyroCMS v1.0, MojoMotor runs on it and ExpressionEngine 2.0 also uses it. The latter two are commercial products that are running perfectly stable to thousands of people. 2.0 is easily more stable than 1.7.2.

Kohana 3 is brilliant once you get the hang of it but the two shouldn't be considered similar anymore. Kohana 3 is a total rewrite of Kohana 2 and is no longer "CodeIgniter-based" or a fork. The most they have in common is that they share the MVC pattern, nothing else.

If you are a relatively new PHP developer you will find CodeIgniter FAR easier to work with, then play with Kohana a little later on. Kohana does some amazing things but they will confuse the hell out of you if you're not used to using frameworks or diving through complicated code to work out whats going on.