Digital world!
A few decades ago, this term seemed to be imagination or future prediction. Today we’re living this dream as a reality.
Mobile apps and websites have become part of our daily routine. However, with every passing day, a new technology comes into the market. Out of which some may rise up with flying colours, while some need to shut their doors.
Consequently, a battle is going on between the two most popular PHP frameworks - Symfony vs Laravel.
The competition between the two is damn tough. Though we’ve laid out a few major differences among them. So, you can choose the one that is the best fit for your web app development.
Are you all set to learn about these two PHP frameworks?
Let’s deep dive into the difference! But, before that, we will share with you an overview of both frameworks.
Symfony - An Overview
A PHP based framework that makes use of MVC for the app design process. Symfony is especially known for its easy testing, debugging, and documentation of an enterprise-level mobile application.
With MVC, you can easily separate the business logic from the presentation layer. The most interesting thing about Symfony is you can use it as a conjunction with the frontend technologies like Angular.js or React.js.
A few important statistics of Symfony framework are,
- The number of per day downloads from the official portal of Symfony is 9,610,335.
- Symfony is used in more than 109,832 live websites.
- 30+ thousand companies across the globe use Symfony.
Laravel - An Overview
Again a PHP based open-source web framework is primarily known for its server-side route handling. The thing you must know about Laravel is you can build pre-defined architecture, customized web panels, templates, and full-stack apps.
Laravel even covers all the basic features of other PHP frameworks like Yii, Ruby on Rails, and CodeIgniter. Adding more to it, this PHP framework uses a Model-View-Controller design pattern to build web applications.
Some of the trending stats of the Laravel framework are,
- Laravel holds 0.37% of the market share from all the frameworks across the globe.
- The only framework that contains 63.5k GitHub stars.
- The US has more than 1 million live websites built on Laravel.
Now you’ve got a glimpse of what these PHP frameworks are. Let’s move toward the difference.
Laravel vs Symfony - The Core Difference
The major difference between these frameworks is explained on the basis of some key factors. It will give you a clear picture for choosing a framework for your business or startup niche. Have a look at the core points of Laravel & Symfony.
Laravel vs Symfony - Performance
In terms of performance, it is said that Laravel is a bit slower when compared to Symfony. However, its community has suggested that optimization can improve the performance of Laravel. It will allow you to improve the performance by 20ms.
For the CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations, Symfony bits each framework for the performance. Besides that, there are so many inbuilt tools that add to the performance of web applications.
Laravel vs Symfony - Application Architecture
In a way, Laravel and Symfony both these frameworks follow the same architecture that MVC but in a different process.
Laravel uses MVC architecture to split the developer roles into a more easy and comfortable process for its development. For instance, if a frontend developer is working on the view part, then the backend developer can simultaneously work on the controller logic part.
For Symfony, all three components of MVC are used simultaneously to keep the business logic separate from the presentation layer. In short, with MVC the flexibility of the Symfony based web application increases.
Laravel vs Symfony - Scalability & Flexibility
In a way, Laravel apps are the most scalable ones. The web platforms built years ago with Laravel still have the same scalability in today’s time. In fact, it is observed that Laravel inherits the scalability from PHP, as it is completely built on it.
On the other hand, Symfony apps are too scalable but you need to put some extra effort in order to scale it. This framework is a mixture of many reusable components. Henceforth, we can say with these components you can make the web platform more scalable.
Laravel vs Symfony - Database Support
When it comes to Laravel, it supports the four main database systems types like Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, and SQL. The process of sending, receiving, and storing the data in the Laravel database is quite simple. You never face any issue in the interaction of web apps and databases in the Laravel application.
Subsequently, databases supported by Symfony are Drizzle, MySQL, Oracle, SQLite, SQLServer, and so on. The database is connected to your application via Doctrine ORM. Here you don’t need to keep tweaking the codebase to make changes in the database. It is one of the best advantages of the Symfony database.
These are some of the major differences between Laravel and Symfony on which you can choose the one for your business or startup. Based on the above points, you can hire a Laravel developer if looking for scalability and hire a Symfony developer if performance is your core priority.
The Parting Thoughts
This battle between Symfony and Laravel is neverending. However, both of them come with their own pros and cons. You have to choose the one based on your requirements. We would suggest you take the help of a software development company.
By sharing your requirements with them you will get an ideal solution for your web application development. This is one of the best ways to find a perfect match for your web platform.
Have a wonderful web platform!
