I’ve been trying to come to a conclusion of what php framework to use on new projects. I finally took the plunge into Kohana and I’m loving it. Some of the other frameworks that made the short list.
- Zoop – I like the command line, smarty, and PEAR integration.
- CodeIgniter – Great documentation, huge community and heavily used.
- TinyMVC – Stripped down version of CodeIgniter. Easy integration into smarty.
- Zend – All the cool kids are doing it.
Like most developers I fought the extreme urge to do everything myself and reinvent the wheel. Although I could of expedited that decision. In the end choosing a well documented and community driven framework makes any application more valuable. It helps when other developers get involved and don’t have to guess what it is your doing. It sets the standard and hundreds or thousands of developers have contributed to that standard. In short it reduces the “WTF?” moments.
If I need a hand on a project or turn it over to someone else the next developer can pick up where I left off. Some of the features that sealed the deal for me.
- Security – filters XSS by default. No configuration needed.
- Large module/plugin library
- Ajax integration and seperation is easy to work with.
- Strict OOP
Development is very fast with Kohana. The more I dig into the more I’m enjoying it.