Symfony vs Laravel : Which PHP framework to choose?

One of the toughest challenges among startups & SMEs today is building quality websites and applications in the least possible time. This is why business owners across the globe prefer to go for PHP frameworks comparison before starting a new web development project. 

But, there are many web development frameworks available in which Symfony and Laravel stand out with few of its amazing features. This brings in the topic Symfony vs Laravel: Best PHP framework comparison in the custom software development domain.

Do you know?

• According to Google Trends, Laravel is the most popular PHP framework used by the enterprises for the last five years. On the other hand, Symfony has achieved the 2nd position  in the race of Laravel vs Symfony comparison.

• BuiltWith report on Laravel usage statistics shows that approximately, 1,076,979 websites are using Laravel among which 466,342 websites are currently live and an additional 382,940 domains that redirect to sites in this list.
• Another BuiltWith report says, a total of 105,560 websites using symfony PHP Framework. 48,263 currently live websites and an additional 68,738 domains that redirect to sites in this list. 

Symfony vs Laravel : Similarities before the war-

Before we start discussing about Symfony vs Laravel: PHP frameworks comparison, let’s first see what they have in common. As both of them are from the same background as in PHP, there are many crucial features which are present in both of them.

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After a thorough research at ValueCoders we found, Symfony and Laravel both support Scaffolding and full-text search. Cross-platform features and acceptance of multilingual content are also common in both of them. Take a look at the image which tells more about the similarities.

Now as you know the common features of Symfony and Laravel let’s see what Symfony has to offer specifics. Symfony vs Laravel

Symfony vs Laravel

Symfony as a PHP framework is well suited for large-scale or complex enterprise level projects. It is a quite stable framework. Symfony 3.1 (the current version) helps developers create scalable websites that are flexible to changing business requirements. Symfony can work with some of the largest open source platforms such as PHPBB, Piwik, and Drupal.

Related: Laravel Vs Yii: 8 Facts You Should Know Today

Here are some other key advantages of Symfony development features –

       1) There are many easy scalability options available in Symfony. With optimizing Propels,  Limiting the number of objects to hydrate, Minimizing the number of queries with joins and avoid using temporary arrays Symfony promises high scalability.

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         2) If Symfony is implemented well, then its speed is the sum of the individual speeds of all the features it includes. Or, from a different angle, Symfony’s speed is the consequence of a series of choices that you made to decide whether a feature should make it to the core or not. Hence, Symfony is faster than many other in PHP frameworks comparison if you use properly.

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       3) It is adaptive to the user’s needs and offers optimum performance. Symfony2 introduced unique HTTP and HTTP cache handling by being an HTTP-centric request/response framework. Also, it increases performance by allowing full use of advanced features like ESI for separating the different parts of your page/application.

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        4) Symfony provides a reusable component reducing overhead costs. There are many reusable components that will make your life easier. You can check some of it’s best practices here.

Laravel vs Symfony

Laravel is a PHP framework purely meant for developing MVC based applications. It is an open source PHP framework that is known to be the finest in PHP frameworks comparison.

Read More: Laravel: an open source PHP framework

Here are some of the key advantages of developing with Laravel:

1) PHP Framework Laravel helps with enforcing constraints between multiple database objects with the help of an advanced query builder mechanism. Apart from that, it provides an easy version control system that helps with simplified management of migrations.

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2) The framework has an auto-loading facility and does not need manual maintenance and inclusion paths. Also, it helps in generating new tools with the help of an IoC container.

Also Read: CAN WE BUILD ENTERPRISE APPS WITH LARAVEL?

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3)  Authentication is one the few important parts of any web development project.  With Laravel, authentication is much simpler as it contains the ready to use inbuilt authentication system. You just need to configure database migrations, controllers, models, and views to make the system work.

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4)  Until now, developers were bound to declare application events as a string. However, you can declare new events in the application using “event object” with Laravel .  The event objects created using php artisan make:event <event-name> & event header object using php artisan handler:event <handler-name>. You can fire the events using Event::fire(new Event(params)) once you create any new event. This makes it much easier and faster.

Laravel vs Symfony: Which PHP framework can give more business benefits?

Let’s discuss here:-

a) Popularity

Popularity is one of the key factors businesses look for while starting a new one or upgrading the existing one. A PHP framework become popular in the market due to a number of aspects including types of apps it builds, maximum developers choice, support, cost & time etc.

You can easily check the status of trending PHP frameworks through online tutorials or can consult PHP experts from reputed organizations. As per my research on both PHP frameworks, Laravel has won this race while Symfony is still performing at second position in the list.

Clear Winner: Laravel

Also Check: PHP vs WordPress: Which is the best one for Your Website?

b) Performance

In the older PHP versions, Laravel had performed well rather than Symfony. With time, new versions come up with improved & enhanced features to boost the performance of websites. Both of these PHP frameworks have upgraded its features. So, there is no major change in the scores.

Moreover, It takes around 60 milliseconds to load a website built on Laravel PHP framework. At the same time, it takes about 250 milliseconds for a Symfony website to open up. Hence, if you consider this parameter, you can easily choose the right PHP framework for your next web app development project.

Clear Winner: Laravel

c) Modularity & Scalability

Laravel is good for MVC-based web applications. But, it can’t help you if you start your project with an approach which is away from the MVC paradigm. However, Symfony provides more modularity because it containsreusable components. 

Symfony is good for big and complex projects as it can handle the large code in a cleaner way. This is the reason why mostly all enterprises prefer Symfony over Laravel in the PHP frameworks. Moreover, Symfony, being the flexible & modular PHP framework, makes the complex web applications easier to enhance & scale. 

Clear Winner: Symfony

D) Cost & Time

With less code and higher performance of Laravel PHP framework, web developers can easily do PHP programming. So, if you are planning to develop your next business web application then Laravel can be considered a good choice which delivers fast and require minimum resources.

On the other hand, Symfony requires more time, great coding efforts, and large resources in the early stage of your projects. It also requires a lot of man power to configure its elements. But this PHP framework is a good choice for complex web app projects, as its functionality works well with your business web application requirements.

Clear Winner: A Tie

E) Support

To perform multiple tasks and mange data with an ease, there is a database support system to help PHP developers. In web development domain, this support system increases efficiency in the business operations and thus reduce costs.

Both these PHP frameworks use ORM(Object Related Mapping) supported databases which makes data process & data manipulation easier. Laravel supports SQLite, MySQL, SQLServer and PostgreSQL. While Symfony PHP framework supports Oracle, MySQL, Drizzle, SQLite, SAP,  PostgreSQL.

You can see, Symfony supports more databases as compared to Laravel. So. Symfony is a clear winner on this parameter. But Laravel functionality deals with bulky & large code blocks to save your time & efforts. It automates various functions including sessions, authentication, routing , caching etc.

Clear Winner: Tie 

The bottom line of Symfony vs Laravel PHP Framework

When finalizing your decision let us remind it is never about the number of features that a particular framework provides. It’s about the actual functionality of the framework and how the functionalities can be utilized within your custom software development project.  Hence, choose one of the frameworks as per your project needs and save time and cost.