When it comes to web development, PHP is the first name that strikes the mind of everyone. Right? This popular programming language has been around for over 2 decades, and contrary to a popular myth, PHP is not dead, in fact, it has been going strong. A report by W3Techs says that PHP is used by 79.2% of all websites on the internet. Today, this general-purpose scripting language is used by some of the big names including Facebook, Wikipedia, Etsy, Tumblr, Slack, MailChimp, WordPress, Yahoo, Canva, and more. Before you outsource PHP development projects to an agency, you must know the top PHP frameworks that are ideal for web development. Let’s look at some of them:-

#1 Laravel

Launched in 2011 by Taylor Otwell, Laravel has emerged as the most coveted framework for web developers with 65k stars on GitHub. Based on a model–view–controller architecture, this PHP web development framework leverages its own templating language, which makes it simpler for developers to create HTML layouts. The thing that makes Laravel stand out from other frameworks is a wide gamut of packages, features, and applications that make web development simpler and faster.

#2 Symfony

Launched back in 2015, Symfony is a matured framework that is ideal for large-scale projects. With 25k+ GitHub stars, this PHP framework is not just limited to web development, in fact, it offers a host of stand-alone reusable components for developing web applications. Furthermore, the components of Symfony are leveraged by top content management systems (CMS) including Drupal, PHP Bulletin Board, and OroCRM.

#3 CodeIgniter

Launched back in February 2006, CodeIgniter is a lightweight framework that helps developers engineer web applications in a quick turnaround time. With 18k+ GitHub stars, this open-source framework is just 2MB in size, including the documentation. Most of the PHP frameworks force developers to abide by the MVC approach, albeit, CodeIgniter also encourages developers to use the model–view–controller pattern but it never enforces them to follow it.

Parting Thoughts

PHP frameworks are designed to reduce the total development time and simplify the development process. Each development framework has its own pros and cons. In this informative piece, we’ve discussed some of the top PHP frameworks that every developer should consider in 2021. Since you’ve got a fair understanding of the top frameworks, you can hire PHP developers for your next web development project.

Author's Bio: 

Alice Gray is a seasoned web developer having over 8+ years of experience in developing tailor-made web applications. In her free time, she loves to educate aspiring developers by developing insightful content on trending tech topics.