Opinions: CakePHP or CodeIgniter for eCommerce

Question

I know there are many options out there for eCommerce and I know there are many opinions on these two frameworks that differ beyond belief.

I am looking for thoughts on which framework would be easier to use to create a site that will be used to sell prints of photos. The prints will be sold in various sizes, each size being added to the cart at a set price that is the same for every picture.

Shouldn't be too complex, just don't want to jump into one and find out that I missed a much easier journey using the other.

Thanks in advance!

(If you're going to give me stats about the difference in speed between the two, keep in mind that it will just be hosted on shared hosting and millisecond differences make no difference to me).

Answer 1

Go with whatever you feel most comfortable with.

Cake has got a steeper learning curve, because it wants a lot of things done its way. I've found myself looking at the source code quite a few times - the documentation sometimes is not clear or missing. But it takes care of a lot of things for you, and the cake console application is nice. It even generates code for you.

Whereas with CodeIgniter you can start developing right away if you are familiar with PHP; and it's a bit faster than Cake too. The manual is clear and concise - I really appreciate that. But it has less functionality than Cake.

So it depends on you. I'd try both for a couple days and make a decision.

Answer 2

Here in the office we use ZenCart for commerce and CakePHP for everything else. I haven't had much to do with Zen and it seems to have organically developed into a nightmarish beast.

I'd love to develop a solution with Cake and I think Cake would be well suited to it. The biggest headache - as I see it - would be solid secure payment handling (which is why we stick with Zen).