Feb
CodeIgniter
Set Up: CodeIgniter is very easy to set up. Copy all the framework files to the web server and it’s good to go. It also has a small folder size – about 2.1 Mb.
Documentation: The documentation is very well-structured and organized although it is a bit less detailed than the Zend framework documentation. CodeIgniter also has forums and a wiki which feature a lot of user-submitted code.
Flexibility: CI is very flexible allowing almost all defaults to be modified.
Performance: CI has about double the performance of the Zend Framework.
Testing: CodeIgniter has a unit testing class but it encourages mixing the test code with the actual source code so I don’t recommend it.A third-party extension for SimpleTest is available though.Using PHPUnit with the CI classes should also be possible.
*CodeIgniter advantages include:
- Extremely easy to setup.
- Lower learning curve then the Zend Framework.
- More accessible documentation.
- Concise syntax – The Zend Framework syntax is wordier.
- 100% faster than the Zend framework.
Zend Framework
Set Up:The Zend Framework requires a bit of effort to setup the project. It requires the creation of a bootstrap file with all the initialisation stuff it. The framework is relatively large – about 12.4Mb and the set-up process took about 19 minutes.
Documentation: The Zend Framework has very detailed documentation with a lot of examples. It is less organised than the CodeIgniter docs in my view although this could be down to the afore-mentioned detail and the large number of components available in the framework.ZF also has a wiki with a few tutorials.
Flexibility: CZF is simply a collection classes and as such any file or folder can be placed anywhere as long as the location is added to the bootstrap file.
Performance: The Zend Framework is about half as fast as CodeIgniter.
Testing:The Zend Framework does not have a built-in unit testing class but the core classes use PHPUnit as their test framework and this can be extended to include any additional classes.Using SimpleTest with the ZF classes should also be possible.
*The Zend Framework advantages include:
- The “official PHP framework”.
- My workplace is already a Zend “partner”.
- Full-featured layout and template system.
- Massive number of classes and components.
- Extremely flexible.
- More advanced database library.
- More advanced validation library.
- Internationalization support.
Conclusion
CodeIgniter is over twice the speed of the Zend framework in all cases and CakePHP is a lot slower than the other two PHP frameworks.
for the benchmarks is in here : PHP framework comparison benchmarks
(Source: http://www.avnetlabs.com/php/php-frameworks-revisited-codeigniter-vs-zend-framework)
