Right PHP Framework for Your Project: Laravel or Symfony?

Posted by Narola Infotech LLP on October 9th, 2021

At the beginning of an exciting new project to develop business and developers choose an appropriate programming language and, foremost, an environment that permits developers to write code that is organized, easily manageable, and reusable.

Similar is the case for PHP development. A PHP framework allows you to expand your program as it develops. Laravel, Symfony, CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Silex, Yii, Aura, and Flight are just a few of the PHP frameworks on the market.

In the early stages of developing applications the most difficult part is selecting the right framework. The majority of businesses choose the PHP framework based on their comfort level with the framework, their experience, popularity, and many other elements.

However, over the last several years, debates regarding the most effective PHP framework have come down to deciding what is better over Laravel or Symfony. In this article, we\'ll discuss PHP Laravel vs Symfony, their differences, and their similarities.

Similarities Between Laravel and Symfony

The two Symfony and Laravel both offer PHP Frameworks as well as features that work across platforms and can help you build your PHP application more quickly. The framework of the application aids in the definition of its structure, and the plugins allow you to quickly add features.

Difference Between Laravel and Symfony

1. Performance

Laravel is faster than Symfony with its performance in earlier versions. But it has improved, and as Symfony 4+ has improved its performance, it is now to a level with Laravel. The advantages in performance that Laravel was previously renowned for have now become a reason for both frameworks\' popularity. When you\'re running the most current version of either PHP framework, you\'ll have top-quality performance.

2. Scalability and Flexibility

Symfony features reusable components which enhance modularity. It organizes code in a more rational way, which makes it suitable for larger complex, more intricate applications. Numerous skilled PHP programmers prefer Symfony over Laravel because of this.

The effectiveness of Laravel is based on applications that use MVC. It\'s a useful set of built-in dependencies especially if you\'re creating a massive application making the decision to select and choose your dependencies and plugins will make it simpler to enhance and develop the app.

Thus it\'s clear that the two Laravel and Symfony provide flexibility and scalability depending on the characteristics of the application that they are employed for PHP Web application development.

3. Templating Engine

While PHP can be a templating engine by itself, adding additional templating engines can allow for more complicated templating using smaller syntax. Other templating engines permit you to preserve the business logic of PHP and also the display logic within the engine that displays templating.

While Symfony includes Twig as its most popular templating tool, the default model for templating is Blade that permits code reuse. Laravel also comes with Lumen which is a sub-framework that allows developing microservices and APIs.

So, both frameworks come with an additional templating engine in addition to the various PHP web development services that allow you to create HTML pages.

4. Database Support

For access to data for data access, each Laravel and Symfony provide support for object-relational maps (ORM). Doctrine manages ORM in Symfony and Eloquent manages ORM within Laravel. In both PHP frameworks, manipulating data becomes much simpler when using ORM.

5. Database Migration

Migrations of databases are automatically handled by Symfony. They require only simple definitions of the model\'s field. Migrations to databases in Laravel are done manually, but they don\'t require fields to be defined.

So each has its distinct advantages in the context that of migration.

6. Data Modeling

Accessing data using Laravel requires a deeper knowledge of SQL. However, with Symfony, this won\'t be the situation. However, it will require the development of a repository feature for every call. If your application relies on an intricate data structure for databases, then you might be faced with a variety of repository functions that you can use in Your PHP and MySQL web development.

Eloquent (Laravel) is a program that tends to tie your application to your schema for your database. The name change of a column could trigger changes to your entire codebase. Mapper patterns are used in Doctrine (Symfony) in order to make it clear between the schema of your database and your business objects as well as logic.

7. Unit Testing

The Laravel framework makes testing code easy by incorporating unit test tools into PHP Web development. It can run a large number of tests simultaneously. It is able to test that the code within an application actually functions and to ensure that any changes made to the code won\'t cause system issues.

It\'s much easier to manage the app\'s code and run unit tests using Symfony because it offers Web developers reusable packages, with no strict dependencies, and the capability to create the patterns of their own design. To streamline unit testing and reduce web developers\' daily tasks, Symfony utilizes the PHPUnit independent library.

8. Security

The Laravel and Symfony fight isn\'t over without a look at their security capabilities. The Laravel framework has a wide range of modern techniques to safeguard the code of an application from attacks by hackers, such as SQL code injections and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), XSS vulnerabilities, etc.

In Symfony, the security feature is a highly sophisticated and efficient mechanism. It offers web developers an easy-to-use security solution for their applications. It uses various methods of authorization and authentication, for example, encrypted usernames and passwords as well as loading user and more. It also permits PHP team members to implement the authentication method of their choice.

When Should Laravel Be Prefered?

PHP Laravel comes with its own design and philosophy regarding the way your PHP application should be constructed. Additionally, it is assisted by fewer codes. Laravel could be the perfect choice to build your application if are looking for speedier delivery with fewer resources. It allows Laravel developers to do more using lesser code, which saves time and energy. They are able to focus on their core project tasks as they not performing regular repetitive tasks.

The reason is that it is because the PHP Laravel framework is pre-built with capabilities such as the Object Relational Mapper, Eloquent Blade, and Blade. Additionally, it is the Laravel package is available for download and Laravel developers will not have to set the framework up, since it has powerful capabilities to automate certain tasks such as queueing, authentication routing, caching, as well as sessions.

When Should Symfony Be Prefered?

A PHP website development company should pick Symfony for more complex tasks. You\'ll get a return on your investment as there is more space for customizing features and making modifications to accommodate changing business requirements.

If installing the Symfony framework, you get the framework in its basic form and don\'t have any built-in dependencies such as templates or default library engines that you most likely will not require.

Symfony also comes with an open-source framework that has self-contained components. In this way that if you have to make significant fundamental changes to your project you can accomplish this by reconfiguring just one unit within its structure, instead of the entire project.

In Conclusion

PHP Laravel as well as PHP Symfony both provide powerful functionalities and capabilities that allow PHP programming simpler. PHP Laravel may be the best choice for you in the case of beginning a new project, such as a startup, or if you are working on smaller projects.

In addition, many developers are skilled in PHP Laravel. So, scaling the project by adding many more Laravel engineers is simple. If you are working on a long-term complex project, PHP Symfony may be the best choice because it\'s fast, flexible, and reliable. It is also flexible, reliable, and durable.

The decision of choosing between Symfony and Laravel could turn out to be an overwhelming job if you\'re beginning your own project for development. However, this is made simpler if you\'ve got the right team on your side. Our PHP development company can assist you in choosing the most suitable framework for your particular project. All you have to do is reach us to set up a time for a meeting.