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.
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Yii Framework
Score 6.0 out of 10
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Yii Framework is a free and open source PHP framework.
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.
Yii is very well suited if you love to program with Object Oriented PHP. This framework uses OOP very well and if you know this pattern you'll love it. The same applies for its MVC architecture and if you come from formal software development education. Also if you are in a bussiness enviroment and need a stable framework. This is the tool for you. It uses very formal scheme but I would like more open and hackable framework, and for this Yii2 is not a good option. Also, if you like to have bleeding edge technologies I don't recommend this framework.
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.
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
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
I think is really easy to use, it's not perfect but many developers with great experience will know how to exploit this framework to create great apps!
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.
It's has a really good support based on online documentation and official forums. But sometimes I wish there were a paid service where to report some urgent issues.
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.
Initial learning was hard, it has very specific tools and requires a basic knowledge that takes time to learn. But after that it's really fast and easy to do apps.
When it changed to version 2, servers had to be be upgraded due to the new requirements. Also it required to learn many things that were not backwards compatible.
It saves time by help us to create great applications in less time but very powerfuls.
