The Languages of Computers

Better PHP Development: CakePHP Vs CodeIgniter

by Chris Miller

PHP has been showing its attitude to other web technologies since last 5 years and amazingly PHP is on top in development pyramid now days. PHP web development has reached to a point where its quality and flexibility are getting increased only and in path of that PHP is offering a wide range of frameworks making sure that it will stay on top. Choosing PHP for your web development also leads to selection of suitable framework for your application and current era of development most of the software development company prefers to use CakePHP and Codeigniter for php web development. But selection of framework should be based on your application type not just because your service provider do not have capability to handle other one and you are the only one who understands your application more than anyone else, so go through the following comparison of frameworks and decide by yourself which one suites you best among CakePHP and CodeIgniter as serving framework.

Use of Conventions:

Both CakePHP and CodeIgniter have massive documentation regarding the conventions and its use, but it totally depends on the internal structure of these frameworks. Codeigniter has a tendency to accept conventions without any strictness but on the other hand CakePHP is very strict to accept or reject the convention used by developers and it asks them to use their documentations for creating any new conventions. This strictness of cakephp leads to a secure infrastructure and with its tighter approach towards the usage of various elements, this framework offers some other very useful functions like “automagic”. Being a developer you should be planned enough to handle things going to happen after next two or three steps and following convention strictly gives you this capability because you know what pattern will appear in your application. Also with cakephp, following conventions leads you to pool of possibilities which you can utilize amazingly.

Learning Curve:

Initially the set of available documentations for naïve developers for learning either of the framework was just enough to move ahead but as time goes by CakePHP increased and took its documentation to whole new level just because of its relatively more inclination towards the conventions. On the other hand, codeigniter does not hinder the creativity of a developer and comes with much gentler learning curve and allows any developer to learn and use the codeigniter in a very fast manner. The gentle learning curve is due to its leniency towards the use of conventions.

Community and Helps:

There will always be some conditions you going to face which needs an external help and this help comes from community of developers using CakePHP or CI. A massive community gives you answers in matter of time and you are not stuck with the problem like forever. In this regards cakephp wins the round with its more active and effective community channels over internet everywhere. Its IRC channels and responses are far better than any other framework.

Definition of Essentials:

Both CI and CakePHP has capability to make your website up and running in fastest mode but cakephp over powers CI when you are forced to implement some extra code or 3rd party thing to CI just to run something basic on your website, like authentications and access control. CakePHP introduces a new set of libraries and tools every time it updates and try to identify the  needs of current development pattern running in any software development company in order to make sure that developers don’t have to fight and spend time for basic utilities.

And your winner is:

Keeping update yourself, making everything available in one pack and following orders (actually conventions) identify a potential php web development character and with the above mentioned comparison we can say that cakephp is better framework for all those applications which are planning to run for long time with endless possibilities of success. On the other hand codeIgniter gives developer to implement his thoughts with imagination without much efforts, which makes it a better framework for custom developed application based on your choice.

About the Author:

Chris Miller is a blogger and web developer for a leading Software Development Company  (www.xicom.biz).  He provides concrete information about PHP web development, .Net/Java apps development, software development & mobile applications development.