Laravel Vs. CodeIgniter; What Capabilities Do These Two PHP Frameworks Provide?
To Design And Implement Websites That Deliver The Best Performance For A Long Time And Attract A Large Number Of Users, Developers Must Maintain Their Knowledge Of Important And Effective Web Technologies.
Fortunately, developers fluent in PHP have two essential and powerful development tools that best manage the maintenance, development, and change process.
These two tools are the frameworks that developers use to build professional websites. Laravel and CodeIgniter are two powerful frameworks that offer high flexibility in structured coding patterns so that developers can produce high-performance web-based applications. Each of these frameworks offers unique capabilities that we will explore in this article.
Every business seeks to implement well-structured websites so that users can interact with them in a better way. Large companies and organizations have to design an efficient website to display and offer products and services to attract more customers or users.
Various programming languages are available for website development today. Still, the enduring popularity and benefits of the Patch programming language have led to the growth and development of powerful frameworks such as Laravel and CodeIgniter to extend the applications of this programming language.
What is Laravel?
Laravel is a popular open-source web development framework that developers can use to perform various tasks.
These tasks include server-side routing, authentication processes, system template preparation, caching, etc.
It simplifies the process of developing web projects and shortens building them.
By providing functional components and libraries that can reuse in Laravel, the developer enables the developer to perform the process of building websites through a predefined infrastructure. To do this, developers have access to a wide range of features such as personalized logic, templates, and templates to make the process of building projects like web portals seamless.
In addition, Laravel shortens the development process and helps developers automate repetitive tasks with simple syntax combinations. Statistics show that more than 650,000 websites have been created with Laravel worldwide.
Why should we use Laravel?
The most important reasons why developers use Laravel are:
- Compatible with popular database management platforms such as SQL Server, Postgre SQL, and MySQL.
- It provides many valuable features to developers to shorten project coding time.
- Provides a powerful command-line interface for performing various tasks such as database management, database transfer, and the like through command line commands.
- It is a well-documented framework that is available through Laravel Modular Package System.
Disadvantages of Laravel
In addition to the many advantages that Laravel has, it also has disadvantages. Among the significant penalties of Laravel are the following:
- Not suitable for novice programmers. Typically, novice developers have to spend a lot of time learning its syntax. For this reason, Laravel is not a good option for developing small-scale websites.
- The process of updating it is complex and involves many steps. If developers do not have enough experience in Laravel, they will face many problems.
- To use Laravel without any problems, you need to be familiar with objectivism and MVC architecture. Laravel ‘s framework has been developed based on objectivism and design patterns; Therefore, mastering these concepts facilitates the coding process.
Uses of Laravel
As mentioned, Laravel ‘s main application is in the field of website programming and programming. However, there are other uses for this framework, the most important of which are:
- It is commonly used as a framework for SaaS products, web portals, templates, and application programming interfaces.
- Has the ability to manage web-based applications in the best way and helps programmers perform daily and everyday tasks such as site maintenance without problems and optimizing code if necessary.
- It is a good framework for developing web applications, as it allows for structured coding and simplifies the testing process.
- Allows developers to develop web applications using integrated plugins and extensions without worrying about malfunctions or incompatibilities with previous applications.
- Accelerates adding operations such as adding, updating, and deleting web elements.
What is a CodeIgniter?
CodeIgniter is a simple, lightweight paperback framework with a download package size of only a few megabytes. This framework follows the MVC architecture model based on MVC and MVVM architectures.
In short, the purpose of the MVC three-tier architecture is to separate the different parts of the software from each other. Each of these sections or modules can be developed independently and linked to each other. In other words, different developers can work on projects with this type of architecture without any problems in their work.
CodeIgniter Uses MVC architecture to run concurrent programming, web application design, and database coding in parallel, giving development teams more leeway. This framework provides a simple but rich software package to simplify developing dynamic web-based applications.
In addition, CodeIgniter can support third-party plugins that abstract complex development features and provide developers with powerful ready-to-use functions for building websites.
In addition, it provides excellent security practices when coding to prevent hackers from quickly accessing website data, which is why it is one of the best dynamic web development frameworks.
Why should we use CodeIgniter?
The framework, like Laravel, has its advantages. These benefits include the following:
- It does not have a complicated configuration. Just download it, do a basic structure and start the process of coding web applications with it.
- Provides pre-prepared classes that allow you to send group emails.
- It Stores all web application data and visitor information in encrypted form.
- It Provides a high-level security mechanism for anonymous users along with XSS filtering.
- Its Ability to provide common authentication mechanisms for all website or web application forms.
- Helps developers use test classes, calendars, and template engines to build powerful web applications.
- Provides developers with powerful pre-prepared modules for efficient, reusable component development to make the web development process faster and easier.
Disadvantages of Codeigniter
Significant disadvantages of this framework include the following:
- Compared to Laravel, a small community of developers is focused on building application libraries, so some large projects may not produce the desired results. Of course, many efforts have been made to add new modules and capabilities to this framework in recent years.
- It lacks some pre-built features such as permissions and authentication, While both of these are present in Laravel by default.
- The process of updating it is a bit time-consuming.
Uses of Codeigniter
Applications of this framework include the following:
- Uses MVC-based design to build dynamic and fast web applications; As a result, members of a development team are better able to interact with each other.
- Today, some e-commerce web applications are built using this framework because it provides a simple payment process and a good navigation structure.
- Provides good functionality for building web applications used to calculate employee pay and that everything should be kept in one central location. For this reason, it is the best choice for building web applications for payroll processing and invoice management systems.
- It is possible to build micro-sites that are developed to manage the employment of part-time or full-time employees.
Famous brands and letters that use Codeigniter
This framework provides organized and structured documentation for businesses to transfer data from one server to another in the simplest way possible. The framework is popular with big industries like the FirstCry e-commerce store, Philippine Airline Co., and similar examples. Statistics show that nearly 50,000 websites have been built using this framework.
Tips to consider before choosing Laravel and Codeigniter
Almost all developers who use PHAP are familiar with the MVC architecture template and use it when developing web projects. However, CodeIgniter has a more straightforward and apparent syntax in this area. This ease of use has led this framework to attract the attention of novice developers who decide to use it to implement small websites.
Laravel is suitable for large, scalable projects and requires more flexibility. It is why developers use the Laravel framework to develop large web projects. To better understand these two frameworks, it is better to review their differences.
Performance analysis
- Because Laravel is relatively slow, it affects the overall performance of the website and web-based applications. However, the problem of speed can improve by modifying some sections of the site, such as image size and video quality. In addition, cache tags help load data before it loads faster to improve program performance and response time.
Scalability
- The use of portfolio programming language as the primary development tool dramatically contributes to the scalability of business services. It allows the modules required for new services to be quickly prepared and hosted on-site, as long as you have a robust database.
- Some well-known brands have built their websites or web-based applications based on Laravel that can make the most of the flexibility and scalability of applications without any restrictions.
- As mentioned, CodeIgniter is a lightweight framework that makes it possible to build scalable applications. The framework helps development teams continue the process by storing the terminology done without interruption in program performance. However, when extending the program, you need to pay attention to important parts of the project, such as the database layer.
Website architecture
- Both frameworks use the same architecture. Laravel supports the MVC architecture and allows developers to select development tasks based on their skill level. In addition, Laravel gives developers complete control over the maintenance of applications and the customization of their appearance.
- CodeIgniter also supports the Model-View-Controller architecture and simplifies the debugging process by providing application features such as scripting and testing modules embedded in web pages. The above approach shortens the development process of web projects by automating the development process and easier debugging. In addition, it allows developers to make better use of JavaScript frameworks.
Performance testing
- Laravel provides robust documentation to development teams, and all of its user guides are tailored to allow developers to test code in various projects. This framework will enable tests to be performed at two different levels called Unit Test and Feature Test. Both tests are performed to fix project bugs. CodeIgniter provides developers with a unit test class for evaluating written code. This mechanism is not very powerful but instead evaluates all the code qualitatively to achieve the desired results.
Compatibility with microservice architecture
- Laravel best supports microservice architecture by focusing on modularity and dividing coding processes into independent sections, each of which is responsible for a specific task. These sections communicate through programming interfaces based on the language-agnostic pattern to ensure that the program runs smoothly. On the other hand, CodeIgniter uses full-stack mechanisms to build and run microservices. In addition, the process of interacting with the source code and developing the infrastructure for data management and integration simplifies the highest level of performance, scalability, and maintainability.
Database support
- Laravel only supports four databases: SQLite, MySQL, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL. These databases communicate with programs written with Laravel through special drivers such as fluent query builder, raw SQL, and Eloquent ORM. As a result, in-app incompatibility problems are minimized. On the other hand, CodeIgniter offers a fast database class with a wide range of features capable of working with traditional structures and query builders.
- The framework supports Microsoft BI, PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2, MySQL, and Microsoft SQL Server. In addition, the combination of the simple and understandable syntax that the framework provides has led developers first to approach the framework when building dynamic web applications.
RESTful state controller methods
- The REstful API is an application software interface based on the REST architecture that allows developers to better interact with RESTful web services. Laravel has suitable RESTful Controller methods that enable developers to prepare and publish a complete set of REST application programming interfaces without much time. On the other hand, CodeIgniter can not use to simplify the development of REST application programming interfaces.
Database template development
- Laravel has a unique feature to support the Database-Agnostic concept, enabling the development and manipulation of tables in all database management systems to simplify terming tables and columns. In contrast, CodeIgniter has no specific features to facilitate interaction with tables and support the Schema Migration pattern. In this framework, the Migration feature is disabled by default and is only used to build and maintain databases in a coded manner.
Learning curve
- Laravel is a sophisticated framework for novice developers, as it has very advanced features that only professional and experienced professionals can understand, while CodeIgniter is ideal for novice programmers.
Community support
- Laravel is supported by a large community of developers, all of whom are active and answer questions in online forms in the shortest time possible. A limited community of developers supports CodeIgniter, and few people can respond when a problem arises.
Laravel v. CodeIgniter, a comparative analysis
- Finally, developers widely use both frameworks to build websites and web applications. In general, Laravel is in the spotlight for professional developers because of its features, capabilities, powerful documentation, Expert Talent tools, and robust database support. CodeIgniter offers almost the same stuff. This framework allows for detailed testing and scalability of web applications. Therefore, we must say that the choice between Laravel and Codeigniter depends on the type of website you intend to build and maintain and the size of the business.