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People, reading this, might be asking: “Why, oh why….is there XY not to be found”.
I, reading this, am asking: “Why are there Riot http://www.riotfamily.org/testdrive.html and Django http://www.djangoproject.com/ not to be found?” Those are the things with brains that came to my mind…

@Tim: I did inlclude Django.

re: the def of model-view-controller architecture – MVC doesn’t just apply to PHP scripting; it is a type of program/software structure.

Thanks for the article. Looks like a few on there I have never heard of.

Where’s Perl eh ;)?

Great list and very thorough. The “Wikipedia comparison” link is really helpful too. What about Grails, shouldn’t that be listed too? Maybe it’s too soon? Here’s a URL – http://www.grails.org for convenience… Thanks.

“MVC doesn’t just apply to PHP scripting; it is a type of program/software structure.”

I disagree; PHP applications have become quite sophisticated since the language’s inception. Developing a large, complex application in PHP without layered MVC (or similar) sepearation is a quick way to get unmaintainable code. I would say this is especially true of PHP, since it’s error reporting and flow of control is typically very difficult to track in comparison to some of the heavyweight application languages out there (Java, I’m lookin’ at you).

I suggest that Stripes (http://mc4j.org/confluence/display/stripes/Home) deserves a mention. It’s an excellent Java framework that follows the philosophy of convention over configuration. The API is fun, easy to get up and running, and it slots in nicely with other technologies.

..and one more thing… :D

My friend Quiltro development ORIGO CSS , take a look !!

There’s no such thing as Symphony. Framework name is symfony
Symfony should be on first place, becouse it’s most complex framework for PHP.

I should remember that Zend Frammework is not a real framework. This is just a pack of classes.

Nice to see my favourite MooTools framework here, I get so many feedback from coders, designers and big companies loving it. I also get a lot of feedback for Agavi, the best enterprise framework, based on PHP5, with a very professional community.

And one typo … Its the Symfony framework, not Symphony.

+1 for including Grails as either a Java framework or a Groovy one.

Hi, in my honest opinion no one should consider this inputs (specially the downside ones) as the truth.
There aren´t any type of analytical information or benchmarking information to get this conclusions, just superficial rumors.

What? Not a single mention of any ColdFusion frameworks? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!

I suggest you at least take a look at Fusebox, Model-Glue, and Mach II.

No Perl. I no read article.

I wouldn’t really consider those server side frameworks implementing the MVC design pattern. They seem to try to do it as an after thought. Plus, the code doesn’t look OO at first glance. There’s lots of inline scripting (aka functional programming) which PHP is fantastic at! I’m not knocking the frameworks, on the contrary, just the MVC label that people put on them. I know there’s probably aspects of the MVC design pattern implemented, but one of the goals of using design patterns is to use a common language amongst developers. And just knowing the MVC design pattern, I couldn’t jump into many of these frameworks and pick them up quickly. Just because you’ve got folders named controllers, model, and views, doesn’t make it implementing the OO design pattern. For example, the index.php file in CodeIgnitor sets lots of “system” properties and includes another file that, among other things, also sets system properties. One of the main OO design principles is to separate responsibility which is spread out and shared in these frameworks.

CakePHP loads 3 different index.php files before creating a Dispatcher object.

The Zend Framework looks EXTENSIVE, daunting even. But I did see familiar method names and classes that would be included in an MVC implementation.

As for the article, the title was how to use, how to choose. And I didn’t get either of those from the content. I’m normally not critical of stuff I read on the web, but all the hype about these frameworks is really wearing on me, I just had to get on my podium…just to let off some steam:) Thanks for the article though. It is a nice list.

The PHP framework that should have been mentioned but was not: Qcodo. It predates rails and all the php frameworks listed, and uses code generation instead of runtime reflection.

Not to forget agavi Agavi. It is probably the most consistent regarding the OO design technique.

The article is good, although a bit shallow. I can’t find any help in choosing a framework – only a tagline for each.

Django is only as popular as it is because of the Ellington CMS. Thats the only reason why newspapers sites are using Django, because they paid $10,000 to now $30,000 to use the Ellington CMS, which is good and is built pretty much for Newspapers sites. If it wasnt for that CMS, it would not be that popular. There are no good books on Python web development, check amazon and you will see that I am right. Only in the last 2yrs have there even been any new Python books made. The Django book doesnt cover installation on Windows either. Not to trash Django, I like the cascading templates but I’m trying to dispell some of the hype behind it. It was supposed to be at 1.0 in 2006, but its still not there yet, so be sure to know that any code you use, could change and need to be modified when they go 1.0.

Adoby Spry… That’s a little overkill I think…

However, I’m missing Smarty (http://www.smarty.php.net), which is an awesome framework when working with templates, I find it strange that nobody mentioned it before, as I thought smarty was pretty popular… If I’m mistaken, well, then you were very right not to include it.

You might mention that Prototype isn’t that well documented, and if you want to learn it, you’re best bet is investing in a book like Prototype and script.aculo.us You Never Knew JavaScript Could Do This!

Anyhow, very nice post!

Hi.
I think that the Java section is, well … screwed up ? The Spring presentation is a bit “wrongy” and “light”: Spring is much more than that, and is mainly an IoC and AOP Container, unless you are talking about Spring MVC ?
Also, the main Java Web frameworks are not listed (JSF, Struts 2, Wicket, etc.). Whot the heck is using Aranea ?

Good job anyway :-)
Regards.

Hi! You forgot to include SPRY framework! Please, include it on JavaScript section. It’s wonderful, easy and a complete framework for create JavaScript effects, sort information and transfer data.

The website is http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/home.html

Since ActionScript 3 is now completely OOP orientated you’ll start to see more and more frameworks being developed for this, two very good ones right now are:

PureMVC and Adobes’ own Cairingorm Framework which is also based around MVC.

Hi to All,

Ruby On Rails is no doubt the best among the MVC. and its limited currently to Ruby World only. ( A God father to Ruby World )

Major inspirations are taken from Rails for creating all the MVC you have seen and discussed above.

The Most surprising part is that…. I have hardly seen any discussion on ” AKELOS “, a pure Rails port to PHP.

Akelos is a xerox copy of Rails framework that works for PHP and the Creator of ALELOS clarifies this on the front page only.

Just wondering how other frameworks can be better that a direct Port / Fork of Rails to PHP.

Why there are no takers…..?

It can be because no one from PHP has tried this yet or perhaps have not tried the Original Ruby on Rails.

Rails is so popular that Java has adopted that with Jruby and Microsoft has adopted with IronRuby. And now a New Asp.Net MVC is based on the same way.

Give AKELOS a try…. Trust me.

Thanks

IronRuby

Nice overview, but I really think Symfony should have a bit more attention. There is a reason why yahoo picked this framework to build some of their apps, like answers, bookmarks and delicious (new one) with. As yahoo has like the most visitors in the world on its network, there should be no concern about wether this framework can handle that. Anyway I recommend anyone considering a framework to check them all out and see which one fits their needs. Java users might also want to checkout wicket (wicket.apache.org). Heard great things about it.

Interesting article and great roundup of frameworks. I come from a .NET background, so was a little lost when I began doing some PHP. Have used CodeIgniter, and found it contained many things that I took for granted in ASP.NET.
Now using Ruby on Rails. Don’t think many people will have heard of that one ;)

An excellent article. I really appreciate the efforts of the author.

Thanks
Soundararajan

Hi, very interesting article. Next an article about CMF ! ??

ajax.NET is no more.

Nice article, but you forgot the Struts2 Framework for Java! :)
http://struts.apache.org/2.0.11/index.html

You forgot YUI Javascript library.

+2 for Grails. I think Grails is mature enough to include. Use the Java platform for rock solid stability and Groovy as a great RAD development language.

Spanish frameworks exists too. For example Kumbia PHP Framework is a framework developed by spanish team that have many options to integrate specified frameworks ( css, javascript, … ) and is based into MVC pattern.

SIte of Kumbia

Symfony is probably the most powerful framework for php. By far.
Quite a bad writeup.

Nice article.. I think symfony is the most complete and have better documentation among others php framework, symfony deserve 1st place..

what about MochaChochaLatta framework? You didn’t include that?

It’s amazing that Drupal wasn’t mentioned.

Drupal has THE most useful community-added modules.

No matter how fast your framework lets you code, it’s always faster if someone has already coded it for you.

The problem with most frameworks is that they do not put enough importance on their communities. They might claim so. But they don’t walk the walk.

Symfony should be given more respect on this PHP framework list; should be highlighted with logo, if not moved to the top of the list. Rather silly that the most complete PHP framework is listed as a footnote. Please fix!

CMS’s I ever consider is: CodeIgniter, Silverstripe, ModxCMS, Symfony, CakePHP and RubyonRails. And from all, I use Modx and Silverstripe. Good luck ;)