Laravel and Symfony frameworks have been on the top of the list of custom PHP web development for many years. Web developers can improve efficiency by streamlining and optimizing the codes using both frameworks.
Plus, both make a fantastic choice in speedy web development. Deciding which one is better for your project can be a tricky choice. The frameworks help create cross-platform apps and multilingual content.
Both Laravel and Symfony have their pros and cons, so it is essential to compare the two to determine which is better for your project.
What is Laravel?
Laravel is open source and comes with model view architecture. It helps create a web app by combining different components from several frameworks. It allows the separation of display code and business logic code, which helps new developers.
You can change the appearance of the app and quickly fix the errors. Laravel supports third-party tools like Redis and Memcached, making web development easier.
Additionally, it uses PHPUnit to automate code testing. The framework comes with a range of methods for accessing relational databases and capabilities that help database management and app deployment. With an MVC structure, it is easier to start the development process.
What is Symfony?
Symfony is a PHP framework that provides efficient development. It is an open-source framework that uses the MVC architecture and helps in developing scalable web applications.
Additionally, the MVC ensures that your project works on a logical flow. You can use reusable components and decoupled libraries as a base for web development projects.
The components help you achieve simple tasks without writing long lines. Moreover, the Symfony profiler feature allows the developers to trace the behavior of the application by mapping the activities and operations on the back-end site. It helps establish the overall design of your web development project.
Feature-based comparison:
1. Performance and speed
Laravel has unified APIs for caching views, but Symfony can take longer to load. Laravel’s loading time is 60 milliseconds, and Symfony takes about 250 milliseconds to load.
However, most Symfony components are used in the Laravel framework. Laravel enables a developer to program in PHP and less coding. For business web applications, Laravel is a better choice.
Symfony may require more resources, time, and effort in developing a web app. However, it does make an excellent choice for complex web projects. The bespoke feature fits the need of the project, providing flexibility.
Performance-wise, Laravel is a better choice. A Laravel development company can give you a complete insight into performance.
2. Installation
The installation process of Laravel is quick, and you can use a composer for installation, but first, you will need to download the framework and use:
composer global require “laravel/installer”
#Once installed, the laravel’s new command will create a fresh Laravel installation in the directory you specify.
laravel new blog
- #Creating a new Laravel installation using this command in Composer:
composer create-project –prefer-dist laravel/laravel blog
You can similarly download Symfony using a similar local host port:
- # Downloading Symfony installer
sudo curl -LsS https://symfony.com/installer -o /usr/local/bin/symfony - # Granting permissions to execute installer
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/symfony - # Creating new Symfony project
symfony new symfony_project - # Launching built-in server
cd symfony_project/ && php bin/console server:start
3. Template engine
Laravel uses a blade, a lightweight template engine that optimizes the web app performance. It allows utilizing the plain PHP code in the view. Besides, all the blade views have complied with the standard PHP code until modified. The blade template has a smaller impact on the performance. You can use standard code in a blade that simplifies the development process.
On the other hand, Symfony uses a twig that allows the development of more compact templates that are web designer friendly. The best part is that the twig can be used in Laravel using the Twigbridge project that allows the integration of the twig into Laravel.
4. Server requirements
Both frameworks have different server requirements. Laravel requires PHP 5.6.4 and a PDO PHP extension, and it requires an open SSL PHP extension. Laravel works with Mbstring PHP extension and tokenizer PHP extension; it also requires XML PHP extension. You require a composer for the installation of the framework.
On the other hand, Symfony requires PHP 5.5.9 and JSON extension. The PHP INI needs to have a suitable date and time zone setting. It also requires a Ctype extension. The server requirements of Laravel and Symfony ensure that the frameworks work smoothly. If not, there can be a glitch in the working of the framework that will affect the development part.
5. Scaffolding
The scaffolding feature builds CRUD from the database in auto mode. You can use this as a base to build your web applications. However, Laravel does not support the scaffolding tool but other tools combined with the framework.
Symfony comes with SensioGeneratorBundle, and provides instructions for the generator bundles, crud-based backbends, controller, and forms. Additionally, you can use the Symfony package -sf to scaffold different PHP apps like – Broswerify, Browsersync, and different CSS preprocessors. Plus, the tool sets give total control over the development process.
6. Scalability
Symfony framework comes with a library of reusable components that helps to increase scalability. Plus, it organizes the codes allowing them to use for different sophisticated applications without any effort.
Scalability is the main reason why professionals choose Symfony over Laravel. Laravel’s main strength is MVC-based applications, but if you deviate from the MVC structure; Laravel is unable to assist you.
Symfony wins in this feature as it offers complete flexibility and versatility. Symfony is better at developing large-scale applications.
7. Database support
Both frameworks make use of ORM – object-relational mapping. However, Symfony makes use of doctrine object-relational mapping, which provides database support better than Laravel.
Laravel supports databases like – MySQL, SQL server, and SQLite. On the other hand, Symfony supports all the databases supported by Laravel. Additionally, supporting databases like – Oracle, SQL, and Drizzle.
Moreover, Symfony provides auto migration of data from one database to another, saving time. If you compare it with Laravel, Symfony has an advantage in database support. However, Laravel’s manual approach is uncomplicated as fields do not require specifications.
8. Popularity and documentation
Laravel is a preferred framework for PHP development and Symfony for complex web applications. The documentation support of Laravel is better than Symfony as it comes with a plethora of training, tutorial, and articles on the web. Besides, it provides training through Larascast discussion forums, where new developers can seek support from expert developers.
Symfony documentation support is good but is complex, so unless you hire a Symfony developer or a Laravel development company to get an insight, you won’t understand.
Wrapping up
Both Laravel and Symfony come with a comprehensive set of features. Laravel makes a better choice for its speed and performance, and Symfony can build complex and large-scale apps.
Laravel is a widely used and popular framework, but Symfony is gaining an advantage because of its top tools and components.
The most important thing to consider is – what project you want to launch. Choose a framework depending on your app and project requirements.
