PHP Vs. Laravel Vs. Symfony Comparison Of Web Development Frameworks
Tags: php, laravel, symfony, webdev
Published: 2020-06-22 09:41:08

PHP developers require different frameworks when they start to develop an enterprise-grade web application. Using a framework comes with its own set of benefits. Frameworks make it easier for the programmer to handle things with minimal coding. PHP frameworks are immensely popular because of the coding standards that recommend good programming styles, methods, as well as practices. Custom web development is a tedious task and thus requires a good knowledge of frameworks.

![PHP Vs. Laravel Vs. Symfony](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/z27dpgg9aa7r10tgp5nm.png)

Choosing the best framework requires a lot of research and understanding. The two main **[web development frameworks](https://devtechnosys.com/insights/fastest-frameworks-for-web-development/)** of PHP that have been used the most since the last 5 years are Laravel and Symfony. Both of these frameworks are extremely useful and users often get confused while selecting one. Here are some of the major grounds on which both of them have been compared for the ease of choice of the developer.

#Below are the points over which these two web development frameworks can be discussed and compared:

**1. Overview Of PHP Laravel Vs. Symfony**

Laravel and Symfony were both released in the same year that was 2011. They are both at 5.0.4 and 5.8, Symfony, and Laravel respectively. The version that people see now has evolved a lot from what they were back in 2011. Laravrel development company is the most popular PHP web development framework and it is used by many web development companies around the world.

The success that it has seen in the past few years says a lot. If we look at Symfony, it is clear that it is not as popular. Where there are more than a million websites that have been built on Laravel, Symfony has powered just 33,000 websites. Looking at the ratings that both the web development frameworks have on Github, we will again see a clear difference because Laravel has 57.7k shares and Symfony has only 22.8k shares. 

Both the frameworks have a large community of developers that have constantly helped them develop through all these years. Symfony has developers in more than 120 countries. Talking about the speed and the complexity, Laravel is better as it can develop high-speed websites with less code whereas Symfony is a bit slow.

**2. Benefits Of Laravel**

There are many benefits of using Laravel over other web development frameworks. We can start with it being fast and using less code. With Laravel, web development companies can easily develop websites that can work really smoothly and fast. Another benefit of this framework is that it separates the ‘business logic’ from the ‘presentation code’, this is one of the things that makes it light.

This framework can be integrated with great backend tools like Memcached and Redis to make the development process easy. It is easy and efficient to fix bugs in the website that developers can find at any stage of development. There are many things that allow the developers to make the websites safe from most of the online attacks. This language can fix many online web application vulnerabilities. 

**3. Benefits Of Symfony**

Just like Laravel, Symfony is also an open-source PHP framework that is based on the MVC model. This framework makes sure that the website or the web application stays within a structure. This makes development simple and fast. It is also capable of separating business logic from presentation code. One of the things that make it a popular choice in multiple countries is that it allows developers to use a lot of code parts.  There are many components that can be reused by every PHP development company in various development projects.

**4. Performance And Scalability Scope Of Both The Frameworks**

Every web application has these two main factors upon which their success depends. They are performance and scalability. Laravel has numerous unified APIs that are used for the purpose of chasing views. On the other hand, Symfony caches views and source code in a default manner. This results in longer website loading time in Symfony. As far as the average loading time of both the frameworks is considered, the **[Laravel development company](https://devtechnosys.com/laravel-development.php)** takes approx 60 milliseconds while Symfony takes 250 milliseconds. Though this can also differ while changing networks and servers. 

Laravel takes its inspiration from Symfony components and allows the developer to do PHP programming with less code and high performance. Larval, thus, is highly scalable and also tops in the performance that makes it more convenient for projects that need faster delivery with fewer resources. Symfony takes more time, effort as well as resources for doing the same amount of work. But, if complex projects need to be done, it is a great choice as it works well with the requirements of the business web application.

**5. Modularity**

Symfony is basically a bundled form of modular structure. It comes with a collection of reusable components. Thus, it ensures better modularity during web application development. Symfony bundles are highly effective in sharing codes and features between various applications. On the other hand, the architecture of Laravel is quite different. It does not allow the developer to make quick changes to the web application. As a result, the changes made in the application need the involvement of the entire unit of code instead of only one module. The ability of Symfony to organize code makes it favorable for complex web development projects.
 
Additionally, Symfony used a twig template engine that makes the developer write more concise and readable templates. Laravel uses the Blade templating engine. This promotes code reusability and does not need the twice definition of the function. Both of these web development frameworks are created on the MVC architecture. In a nutshell, it can be said that Symfony is the best choice for code modularity as well as component reusability.

**6. Support For Database**

Database support holds prime importance in every framework because it plays a vital role in managing data and performing various tasks in an accountable manner. It also helps in storing, organizing, and managing information within a single software application. Both Laravel and Symfony use ORM. While Symfony uses Doctrine, on the other hand, Laravel uses Eloquent for data handling. 

Symfony database migrations work automatically but the developer needs to define specific fields in the given code. But Laravel is fully-automatic and there is no need to define the fields. Every **[PHP development company](https://devtechnosys.com/php-development.php)** makes extensive use of these two frameworks but Symfony surely wins this one because of its simplicity and support of more databases.

##Conclusion

Above is a comparison between Laravel and Symfony on the basis of different aspects. Laravel might be one of the more popular web development frameworks, but Symfony also has its own benefits and is usable for some specific types of websites. So which one of them is better? This is totally on the website development companies and their requirements.