Comments on: Code Igniter – PHP Framework

By: Paul Rhodes

Paul Rhodes — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:51:00 +0000

Must agree with everyone above, great Article.

We have been using CakePHP for over 3 years and as a result have been able to build a number of large scale web applications. For me, there is some much discussion around which PHP framework to use that it’s just down to picking one and seeing it through. Perseverance is the key!

For a development team to scale with demand and changing client requirements a framework is a must.

I am more than happy with CakePHP and have no real reason to look at another. There is definitely a learning curve, and a massive skills shortage of CakePHP developers, however, convention means we can scale a development team overnight and have everyone productive from the start. It makes picking and debugging other developers code really easy. Automagic is one to watch but results in rapid prototyping. The 1.3 release is great and documentation is always improving?

Big thanks to CakePHP devs and anyone using a framework!

By: pixelcone

pixelcone — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:03:47 +0000

Great Article!
Codeigniter is really simple and I used it to build my website. It is great for creating simple web application like content management system, etc. but when it comes to building complex application I can’t guarantee that codeigniter is more powerful enough. CakePHP is best though for building enterprise application.

By: akeemphilbert

akeemphilbert — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:47:05 +0000

That was done over a year ago but off the top of my head I can tell you it required some modification of AMFPHP code and I believe some special stuff in the bootstrap. In the end it wasn’t perfect (I ran into a weird bug where booleans were inverted) and I would probably recommend that you check out Zend Framework’s http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.amf.html (it should be able to work without making use of the entire Zend Framework but I am not sure what the path to using this will be)

By: Tracy

Tracy — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:16:37 +0000

I’m interested in how you got AMFPHP working so that it can integrate with your CodeIgniter models and controllers. This has been causing me a huge headache. I’ve tried both methods suggested in the CodeIgniter community – using hooks, including a file that tries to instantiate the needed parts of CI – but AS2 doesn’t seem to like either one. What approach did you use?

By: Dinesh Sharma

Dinesh Sharma — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:32:51 +0000

Thank you for your views. I had thot of going for CakePHP but the installation configuration was cumbersome. Once done the bake is not working. In cakePHP one has to work on command line. After reading your article I think I shud give CI a try.

By: akeemphilbert

akeemphilbert — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:27:56 +0000

For a site with that much concurrent users I would say take the Zend Framework route and save yourself a couple weekends.

Reasoning

1) Support
2) You have the option to subscribe to Zend Platform that may help.
3) I am only just getting into heavy Zend stuff but I think it would be easier to scale (more so in combination with platform).
4) I am finding more and more that things I like from CI and Cake are easy to replicate in Zend Framework (though I know not much people would care to hear that) so I am ending up with a boatlaod of cool stuff in ZF.

By: Noah

Noah — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:57:36 +0000

So would you suggest going with CI for a large PHP project, that would be handling 1 million concurrent users?

By: akeemphilbert

akeemphilbert — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:30:39 +0000

I would say CI is a “sure, why not” over CakePHP, that is based on the assumption that you are going to be working with a team on this enterprise app. CakePHP is kind of hard to get a team up to speed on and the project I used it on choked when it got rushed by a lot of users.

I think I can now articulate why Zend is more enterprise beyond my “feeling”:

1) The framework is being touted as part of an ecosystem. So there are more support options for the Zend framework than CI.
2)Zend is more debugging friendly. CI has error handling but Zend framework’s own is a little richer and gives you more options for catching and gracefully handling errors (and the different types). A big plus for anybody who has done large scale projects in php.

For medium projects I say give CI a shot. If you are looking to get your team using just one framework then I say go Zend because besides the other pros I mentioned in other posts another benefit popped up with the team I work with and that is the ability to retro fit Zend components into projects that weren’t started in that framework (The loosley coupled thing is really nice)

By: o'reilly

o'reilly — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:58:01 +0000

Excellent article. I’m currently searching for a solid PHP framework and CI and Cake seem to come up a lot in my searches. About that “enterprise feel” comment directed towards CI… I kind of see what you mean when you say that… maybe it’s because I got things up and running so quickly (after just the first five sections of the “General Topics” section from the user guide and I pretty much understood how everything worked) with CI right out of the box that my mind went, “enterprise apps shouldn’t be this easy, is this for real?”

… but it is something I’m curious about because I always have scalability in mind. Would you say Cake would be ideal for enterprise apps and CI for smaller projects or, perceptions aside, would you give CI a “sure, why not” when tackling an enterprise app?

By: Dylan Wreggelsworth

Dylan Wreggelsworth — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:30:26 +0000

Thanks for the unbiased reviews. Having used Cake and CI this was a fair assessment, and helps when I am rethinking what I should be using.