codeigniter is a good purely MVC framework that doesn't add much extra overhead to your project (by default -- you can pull in plenty of overhead with the external libraries and such). if you want the MVC separation but don't want to be weighted down by other things and like to hack around in php, its a good choice.
cake/symfony/etc. are rapid development frameworks that try and recreate some of the magic of rails in php form. they're very good to get somewhere quick. they do suffer from a bit of feature bloat and performance problems if you're planning for a large application down the line.
i've used them all, i like them all. having said that, i would hands-down go with codeigniter on every project IF they were to pull together a better community and form better community code and libraries. for example, it took me forever to get a simple, working, secure authorization library in codeigniter, including having to mess around with the module myself to do what i wanted it to do. it comes fully functional in cakephp.
i would hands-down go with codeigniter on every project IF they were to pull together a better community and form better community code and libraries
The CI community is one of my favorites. People are quick to respond on the forums, and Ellis Lab works closely with the community to make sure people get the help they need. As for code, I feel that there are plenty of good solutions for most of the common spots that CI itself does not fill, but everybody's needs are different.
Comments
codeigniter is a good purely MVC framework that doesn't add much extra overhead to your project (by default -- you can pull in plenty of overhead with the external libraries and such). if you want the MVC separation but don't want to be weighted down by other things and like to hack around in php, its a good choice.
cake/symfony/etc. are rapid development frameworks that try and recreate some of the magic of rails in php form. they're very good to get somewhere quick. they do suffer from a bit of feature bloat and performance problems if you're planning for a large application down the line.
i've used them all, i like them all. having said that, i would hands-down go with codeigniter on every project IF they were to pull together a better community and form better community code and libraries. for example, it took me forever to get a simple, working, secure authorization library in codeigniter, including having to mess around with the module myself to do what i wanted it to do. it comes fully functional in cakephp.
just my $0.02
i would hands-down go with codeigniter on every project IF they were to pull together a better community and form better community code and libraries
The CI community is one of my favorites. People are quick to respond on the forums, and Ellis Lab works closely with the community to make sure people get the help they need. As for code, I feel that there are plenty of good solutions for most of the common spots that CI itself does not fill, but everybody's needs are different.
i definitely agree that the community response is there, but the community organization and resources are not.