CodeIgniter vs. Laminas Project

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
CodeIgniter
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
CodeIgniter is a free and open source PHP framework, developed originally by EllisLab.N/A
Laminas Project
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Zend Framework was a PHP framework developed by Zend Technologies and acquired by Rogue Wave Software. The Laminas Project is the community managed Open Source Continuation of Zend Framework managed by the Linux Foundation. Transition initiated after Rogue Wave was acquired by Perforce in 2019.N/A
Pricing
CodeIgniterLaminas Project
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CodeIgniterLaminas Project
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CodeIgniterLaminas Project
Considered Both Products
CodeIgniter
Chose CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter is a lot easier to implement than Laravel. Even though laravel has a lot of other features, they weren't really important for me. I cared about fast deployment and product release and CodeIgniter helped me do it perfectly.
Chose CodeIgniter
We chose CodeIgniter for main reason our main site is using an expression engine which is a CMS on top of CodeIgniter. It also had all the features we needed.
Chose CodeIgniter
We have used the express framework as well, but the issue is slow development in express because it takes a lot of time to restart the server on every change on the backend.
Chose CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter has a very small footprint. The source code is very small sized. Setting up a project is very easy. Follows MVC pattern. Consumes low memory and CPU. Well documented. Has a built-in forum for users to discuss and get the solution for issues. Periodically updates …
Chose CodeIgniter
Because of CodeIgniter's fast speed and well-developed architecture, it stacks up against the rest of the PHP frameworks. CodeIgniter can also be modified to use the Hierarchical Model View Controller (HMVC) development pattern which allows CodeIgniter developers to group …
Chose CodeIgniter
Codeigniter's syntax patterns are expressive and elegant. Unit testing support. Well documented. but as CodeIgniter tries to retain backward compatibility with PHP 4, here comes Laravel to the rescue. It has good features and it is updated. Wikipedia has mentioned, “according …
Chose CodeIgniter
Although lacks installation using composer, its not difficult to install this framework. Because of its open platform, documentation and resources its easy to create a project and make it better. Can get a lot of help from the developer community who have used it previously. …
Chose CodeIgniter
We chose CodeIgniter because although it has a steep learning curve, ultimately it suited our needs better in terms of how well it scales for larger applications.
Chose CodeIgniter
In my experience, I tinkered with Zend and Cake initially before CodeIgniter. I recall getting stuck multiple occasions with Zend and Cake when I first started learning the MVC architecture. When I found CodeIgniter, the experience was different and it was much easier to learn. …
Chose CodeIgniter
Similar to the other frameworks, CodeIgniter was chosen due to its community and popularity. It has much of the same aspects of the other frameworks we evaluated, except .Net which obviously doesn't use PHP. CakePHP has a CakeBake function that we wish we had with CodeIgniter, …
Chose CodeIgniter
Laravel is the de facto upgrade path for any and all web developers coming from any version of CodeIgniter. However, Laravel brings a level of complexity that can be intimidating to new developers or wasteful to experienced developers with simple requirements.

In terms of …
Chose CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter is a great choice for small or medium projects that can be deployed in every kind of hosting, especially those oriented to low-cost hostings like GoDaddy. Symfony and Laravel are frameworks for highly scalable projects with hundreds of plugins available. Also, these …
Chose CodeIgniter
Both older and new versions of CodeIgniter lack installation via Composer. Laravel is our other framework of choice; its installation, updates, and addition of third party packages are significantly easier with Composer. CodeIgniter is our primary framework as our CMS is build …
Laminas Project
Chose Laminas Project
Zend Framework is great to be used a library on any PHP project architected with any of those frameworks. When the project started, Zend Framework was the most advanced PHP framework around, and it stuck with us. Today there are multiple high-quality options and Zend Framework …
Chose Laminas Project
It isn't the fastest but is one of the faster available. It's the only one currently supported actively by the PHP team itself.

You might find more classes in Symfony for instance, but in the end, most of the core files will be supported above Zend classes either by extension or …
Chose Laminas Project
One time we needed a new site up and running fast. It needed a complicated blog style CMS with good user management and Zend just wasn't going to cut it with the time constraints. We ended up going with Expression Engine, which is built on top of CodeIgniter and I HATED it. I …
Chose Laminas Project
Laravel is simpler but has less mature components. For example, the event modeling and dependency injection in Zend Framework 2 seems to handle many more advanced cases a lot easier - where as in Laravel you will have to probably build much more on top of what they provide. …
Chose Laminas Project
While Zend Framework is similar to Laravel and Symfony, and seemingly more popular among businesses, I feel like it is harder to use compared to these two. Laravel and Symfony seem more friendly to the developer in terms of documentation and ease of use, though Zend Framework …
Best Alternatives
CodeIgniterLaminas Project
Small Businesses
Laravel PHP Framework
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 8.6 out of 10
Laravel PHP Framework
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Laravel PHP Framework
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 8.6 out of 10
Laravel PHP Framework
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises

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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CodeIgniterLaminas Project
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CodeIgniterLaminas Project
Likelihood to Recommend
CodeIgniter is very well-suited to those beginning PHP web development, and who are tired of writing the same code over and over (like authentication mechanisms). It is a very good choice for those looking for a framework that will not try to "dictate" how their application is designed and which choices are made. Situations where highly modular code is required and where more advanced features like queuing and hooking are needed are situations where CodeIgniter is not a good choice. More modern frameworks like CakePHP and Laravel are much better-suited.
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Zend Framework is well suited for large (or potentially large) software projects. It has the tools and structures for organizing and maintaining millions of lines of code by providing different scaffolding and service management capabilities. Obviously, it works well in environments that prefer a traditional PHP-based MVC stack as that is how it's designed. For smaller or less experienced teams, it might be faster to build something using a simpler framework such as Laravel or Symfony because the learning curve is a bit less steep. The routing system of Zend Framework is incredibly powerful but also very hard to get right, for example. Overall, however, being skilled with Zend Framework 2 will be very advantageous.
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Pros
  • CodeIgniter is an MVC framework that allows us to organize our code in a manner that it is easier to maintain and update. If you are working in a team environment and building an application or website like our dashboard, then CodeIgniter is a great solution.
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  • The Zend Framework excels at productivity. It's lightweight, loosely-coupled enough to provide 90% of the functionality that everyone needs out of the door, but also customizeable enough to meet the remaining 10% should your business need it.
  • Because the Zend Framework is functionality focused (also supported by the actual PHP developers) - it is light enough to hit the ground running with. Having no configuration files to get rolling is also a huge plus.
  • The documentation of the Zend Framework is reliable, updated & succint. I have not encountered an issue that I could not easily troubleshoot from looking at the documentation.
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Cons
  • Faced some issue of session management, so that's why we used the Core Session library for that. It would be great if we could improve it a little bit.
  • Frameworks provide the option to setup all getters/setters, so having this option in it is a great idea.
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  • The routing configuration is very painful to use. Seems like it was thrown together.
  • The framework is very heavy, and sometimes confusing with how abstracted everything is.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
I absolutely love Zend Framework. However we are using Zend Framework 1 and when we get to the point that we need to go Zend Framework 2 (for PHP namespacing) I may explore other frameworks. When we chose Zend it was the best option for us. I'd like to see if maybe there's a better fit that doesn't have the same complicated overhead of Zend Framework
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Usability
No answers on this topic
Zend is very usable once you learn how to use it. I've had moments where I thought what I want to do isn't possible but I've learned I haven't looked in the correct place yet. Zend is a Catch-22. It's very usable once you know how to use it. But I strongly feel it's worth learning
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Zend Framework has the best (paid) support and ecosystem I've ever seen in a PHP framework. The company has developed many products, including Zend Server, Zend Debugger, and an Eclipse-based IDE that extends the framework to create an entire development platform that can improve developer productivity and software quality while maintaining the clean architecture that characterizes the framework.
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Alternatives Considered
Codeigniter's syntax patterns are expressive and elegant. Unit testing support. Well documented. but as CodeIgniter tries to retain backward compatibility with PHP 4, here comes Laravel to the rescue. It has good features and it is updated. Wikipedia has mentioned, “according to a March 2015 developer’s survey on PHP frameworks popularity, Laravel was listed as the most popular PHP framework of 2015, followed by Symfony2, Nette, CodeIgniter, Yii2, and others.
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It isn't the fastest but is one of the faster available. It's the only one currently supported actively by the PHP team itself. You might find more classes in Symfony for instance, but in the end, most of the core files will be supported above Zend classes either by extension or by encapsulation. The only con that I see is the learning curve required to adopt this framework, and the amount of additional work you will have to do to build PHP based apps with it.
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Return on Investment
  • CodeIgniter has been a very good alternative for developing API endpoint for our Android applications and we received very good output through CodeIgniter.
  • Because the source code is smaller but comes with MVC pattern, it has the functionality to develop an application faster with MVC strategy.
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  • It has had zero cost of maintenance over the last 10 years and counting.
  • No version upgrade has introduced a single issue in 10 years.
  • Systems didn't have to be re-implemented and they aren't in debt either.
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