Laravel vs. Symfony: Which is right for your web application?

Laravel and Symfony are one of the most popular and widely used options when it comes to choosing a PHP framework. Each framework brings its own ideas, features and advantages to the table, making them suitable for different projects and use cases. Understanding their differences and similarities is essential to choosing the right framework for your development needs.

In this blog, I compared Larave l vs. Symfony, starting with an overview of each framework. I then checked the key similarities and differences and suggested the best use cases for each use case to help you determine which one is right for your web application.

What is Laraville?

Laravel's Orm is called Eloquence - Using SQL-like syntax provides a useful and flexible query builder.

The open source framework was first released in 2011 and has indeed made progress over the past few years, which is popular. Laravel has a reputation for being easy to use and works out of the box.

A major factor in Laravel's explosive growth is its simplicity, powerful conversation management tools and excellent performance. It's easy to see how it becomes the preferred tool for setting up many direct applications.

What is Symfony?

First written in 2005, Symfony has evolved over time, rather than a simple PHP framework. Its components are designed from scratch and are a regular member of a dependency list of any size.

Today, Symfony has established itself as an incredibly powerful framework for simple and complex enterprise projects. Also based on the MVC mode, Symfony's structure is to generate easier logical flows through its active recording mode and map to the table on a 1:1 basis.

In addition to providing powerful form-building tools and very flexible routing, Symfony's focus on modularity can also make it more reusable components, a valuable time-saving factor when building multiple or complex platforms.

Laravel vs. Symfony: Main Similarities

Laravel and Symfony share several key similarities, and both frameworks fill the same niche. They are each built on the MVC model, run as community-supported open source projects, and provide many expected and standard tools for web development. This includes a template engine, CLI interface, test tools, localization capabilities, and more you expect from any well-designed PHP framework.

Also, I'm going to note that another similarity between the two frameworks is that they both use symbolic components. Symfony's modularity allows its components to lend out the use of many other platforms and projects.

Laravel vs. Symfony: Key Differences

Although there are many similarities between Laravel and Symfony, and while they both work in the same general role, it's better to look at what separates them from each other. This includes checking for performance, security, scalability, and other features.

Performance

Performance is a category that changes over time when selected between Laravel or Symfony. Compared to Laravel, older versions of Symfony (V3 and Lower) have obvious performance issues, but versions 4 and 5 of Symfony have solved this. Today, both frameworks perform very similarly.

However, each direction can perform from different directions, which will show when we consider scalability. Some of the differences are more noticeable when you get into a large project. Symfony's focus on modularity puts itself on a large project where Laravel needs to make more tweaks to produce the same performance on a large scale.

Scalability

Symfony proposes the front when comparing the scalability of Laravel vs. Symfony. Its basic design is designed to be used for modularity and reuse, which can naturally be scaled. This is not to say that Laravel cannot be expanded, it is just that Symfony's design is more suitable for large projects than Laravel's design.

An example is how each framework processes a model. In Symfony, each model is associated with a table, and SQL does not participate in the class, and uses it for reuse. In contrast to Lavavel's doctrine, Lavavel's doctrine uses SQL-like languages ​​in its model and requires some reconstruction before reusing it.

Safety

There are several similarities to consider when comparing the security of Laravel and Symfony. Both use all industry standards and are safe. While Laravel's simplicity can make setting up basic security easier and faster than Symfony, the latter's extra features can provide greater control.

As a result, it's hard to say that one is strictly better than the other, as it depends on your use case. That being said, both platforms have powerful security tools and there is no lack in the department.

Learning curve

When choosing Laravel or Symfony, the learning curve for each framework is a major consideration. Laravel’s learning ease is one of the main factors that have pushed Laravel to its popularity today. Although both frameworks have a lot of documentation, Laravel is very easy to set up and get started. Its simplicity is more suitable for smaller or straightforward projects than all the options Symfony offers.

However, in the hands of experienced users, Symfony will provide a list of outstanding features, but again, using it effectively takes time and experience.

Select Laravel or Symfony based on the use case

Both Laravel and Symfony provide reliable results for PHP web applications, but they are still suitable for different use cases. Which one is best for your team, project and goal?

• Choose Laravel for projects that require rapid development, quick learning curve, easy setup and behind-the-scenes automation. It is ideal for lightweight and straightforward applications, making it a popular choice for startups and smaller projects.
• Choose Symfony for larger or more complex projects for increased flexibility and security, especially in enterprise environments. That being said, Symfony is still a great tool for any task.

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