Laravel vs CodeIgniter: Which is the PHP Web Development Framework to Choose?

When it comes to developing bespoke solutions, PHP comes as a prevalent backend programming language. As a result there are abundant PHP frameworks available on the web accelerating the web development process. Among them, Laravel and CodeIgniter are the two trendy PHP frameworks that have made their way into the web development field with their growing popularity.

Though both are capable enough to speed up the web development process, still there are some underlying differences between Laravel and CodeIgniter. So, if you are looking for the best PHP framework to develop your web project, look at the detailed comparison of Laravel vs CodeIgniter to determine the best PHP framework to choose for your next web development project.

A Brief Overview of Laravel Framework:

Laravel is a diverse framework with a variety of implementations in web application development. It is an open-source, popular PHP framework based on Symfony, specially designed for full-featured web app development projects. It is best known for its exceptional HTML authentication, server-side handling of routine, templating, and many more.

So, if you are planning to build an app with pre-defined architecture, custom backend, developed web portals, templates, or even a full-stack app, Laravel is the ideal framework to choose.

Top Features of Laravel Framework with statistics:

Laravel is power packed with numerous awesome features that help it to stand out from the other frameworks present out there making it popular among developers and businesses. Now look at the best features of the PHP Laravel framework:

• Laravel is featured with lightweight templates that can be used to create excellent layouts with distinctive sections. In addition, these templates are innovatively designed and use dynamic content seeding providing multiple widgets incorporating CSS and JS code.
• Laravel PHP framework supports MVC architecture. If you Hire Laravel Developers, they will help you separate business logic and presentation layers using several built-in functions of MVC architecture. As a result, it will accelerate the speed and scalability of your application.
• Laravel framework is designed with a very strong web application security that uses robust hashed and password mechanisms. In addition, the PHP framework also uses prepared SQL statements that can effectively prevent SQL injection attacks.
• Laravel has a built-in command-line tool named Artisans that helps developers to automate several tedious repetitive programming tasks such as creating the database
• structure, a skeleton code, managing migration, generating basic MVC files through the command line, etc.
• Most important Laravel features include its pre-installed Object-Oriented and Modular libraries like Authentication library and many more which are absent in many other PHP frameworks.

Pros & Cons of Laravel Framework:

Pros:

• Laravel has multiple pre-packaged tools for authentication, testing APIs, etc.
• Laravel has a templating engine called Blade that offers excellent power for data formatting and developing complex web layouts.
• Laravel is easy to learn as compared to other PHP frameworks including CodeIgniter.
• Laravel offers a unique reverse routine feature that supports the automatic propagation of route changes.
• Laravel is designed with a dependency injection feature that enables class dependencies into a class through a constructor or setter method.
• It provides an accessible testing environment and methods that streamline the users’ behavior and accelerates the speed of the testing time.

Cons:

• Laravel is too lightweight leading to backend congestion of database queries, lower performance, etc.
• Its large community makes the framework difficult to evaluate the quality of the Laravel libraries. Developers find it difficult to choose which library is more reliable and scalable.

Laravel Market Usage Statistics:

• When it comes to market share, Laravel holds around 0.32% of the overall market share among all the other existing web frameworks available now.
• Laravel achieves 68k Github stars and 21.5k live projects along with 544 dedicated contributors to help optimize the real-time framework.
• Laravel implements over 648,115 websites globally with more than 1.78% US-based websites.

So, when it comes to building a complex project with excellent functionalities, partnering with the top Laravel development company that helps you provide the best Laravel Development Services to your requirements.

A Brief Overview of CodeIgniter Framework:

When it comes to building dynamic websites, CodeIgniter comes as one of the prominent PHP frameworks. Developers look for this framework for building an elegant and simple full-featured web development application. Other prominent reasons why developers, as well as businesses, prefer this framework for web development is because of its reliability, great data encryption procedures, security, third-party plugins, and many more. So, if you are looking to develop a dynamic website using PHP, you can opt for the best CodeIgniter Development Services.

Top CodeIgniter Features:

CodeIgniter has gained popularity amongst PHP developers because of its effective characteristics and work functionalities.

• CodeIgniter comes with the latest in-built features allowing developers to plan and develop robust websites.
• CodeIgniter can help developers deploy and work on an update of a website easily. It is because CodeIgniter source code along with PHY syntax size surge within 2MB.
• CodeIgniter framework utilizes the Model-View-Controller architectural design that helps developers separate data, business logic, and presentation in web applications.
• The most prominent feature of CodeIgniter is that it can work independently without relying on other components. This is the reason why CodeIgniter components are easy to maintain and upgrade as compared to other PHP frameworks.

CodeIgniter Market Usage Statistics:

• CodeIgniter holds 0.22% of the overall market share among all the web frameworks available today.
• It achieves 18.2k stars and with 7.8k forks on Github.
• A recent study shows that more than 1,453,681 websites are built on the CodeIgniter framework globally.

Pros & Cons of CodeIgniter Framework:

Pros:

• Being lightweight, CodeIgniter is one of the faster PHP frameworks.
• This framework is easy to set up. As a result, both beginners and experienced PHP developers like to use CodeIgniter to develop a variety of web solutions.
• CodeIgniter speeds up the web development project by implementing page and database caching.
• CodeIgniter offers security against several security threats such as SQL injections, cyber-attacks, and code execution while creating web applications with tons of complex features.

Cons:

• CodeIgniter develops some issues resulting in poor code maintainability. Developers need to put extra effort to modify and maintain codes due to the absence of modular code separation.
• It has an absence of exhaustive libraries resulting in a lack of development and growth and lesser updates.

CodeIgniter vs Laravel: A Detailed Comparison

Being the two distinct PHP frameworks, it is very obvious that they serve different web development purposes and advantages. For instance, while CodeIgniter does not facilitate ORM, Laravel allows web developers to gain full benefits of ORM or eloquent object-relational mapping.

Again, CodeIgniter requires the developers to form the modules by using the modular extension, where Laravel is designed with inbuilt modularity features. The other major differences also include the fact that CodeIgniter is a minimalistic microframework suited for simple app development, whereas Laravel is a full-stack development framework suitable for developing robust and complex apps.

There are several other differences between Laravel and CodeIgniter based on construction, updates, DBMS support, inbuilt modules, popularity, facilities, support, testing, database model, authentication, HTTP support, learning curve, and many more. Simply put, though both are considered popular PHP frameworks, they are suited for different web development purposes.

Below are the comparisons between CodeIgniter vs Laravel by considering several factors:

Learning Curve:

It is difficult to learn Laravel at the very initial stage. It is because Laravel possesses several extra traits.

Learning CodeIgniter is easier as compared to Laravel.

Construction & Maintenance:

Laravel file structure is based on the MVC paradigm with a command-line tool dubbed the Artisans.

CodeIgniter follows the MVC paradigm along with facilitating onboarding.

Support for Database Management System:

Laravel supports several databases including Microsoft SQL Server, ORACLE, MySQL, IBM DB2, PostgreSQL, and JDBC compliant databases.

CodeIgniter supports databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Microsoft Business Intelligence. Moreover, it supports other popular databases interacting with Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and DB2.

Built-in Modules:

This framework is designed with built-in modularity helping developers divide a project into simple components.

This framework does not come with any built-in modularity functionalities. It simply means that developers need to create and maintain modules using Modular Extensions.

Popularity:

Laravel is more prominent today due to the flexibility it offers in its communicative code style.This is the thing that most developers prefer about Laravel.

Simplicity is the most preferred reason why developers choose CodeIgniter.

API Construction & Template Engine:

Laravel is featured with a robust and straightforward template engine dubbed Blade that helps PHP programmers improve the web application’s execution.

Unlike Laravel, it lacks a built-in template engine. Developers integrate it using smart and third-party templating engine tools enabling users to conduct routine activities and optimize the website speed.

Testing: The difference between Laravel and CodeIgniter

Largely depends on their testing methods. Laravel allows its developers to test application code with the help of the PHP unit in the most effective manner.

But, CodeIgniter does not have any integrated unit testing tool that can allow developers to test application code. This is the reason why developers utilize additional unit testing tools for accessing the code.

Authentication:

It is easy to apply authentication and authorization rules in Laravel mainly because of its authentication class trait.

CodeIgniter does not have inbuilt authentication traits.

Use Cases:
Laravel use cases may include enterprise-level applications, applications with backend data management, IoT infrastructure, high-level security applications, e-learning web applications, etc.

CodeIgniter framework is mostly used for building eCommerce applications, invoice management applications, payroll web applications, on-demand applications, and SaaS-based applications.

Which One to Choose for Web Development: Laravel or CodeIgniter?

Both Laravel and CodeIgniter frameworks are trendy. So, when it comes to choosing the best PHP framework by considering Laravel vs CodeIgniter Performance, both these frameworks prove to be outstanding and well-suited for distinct objectives. So, it is important to choose between these two frameworks by looking at the needs and demands of your business and the nature of your project.

Laravel is a Better Choice for a Web Development Project if-

• Your project is big and complicated. When it comes to building a website full of complex features and functionalities Laravel can be the ideal framework for you.
• You need well-suited database-driven web applications that need big datasets management.
• You are looking for a full-stack PHP framework that can span the whole web development lifecycle.
• You Hire Dedicated Developers with expertise and experience in developing numerous web applications using the Laravel framework.

Moreover, when it comes to developing a robust application, Laravel supports the development with no time. The benefits of the Laravel framework include its advanced security protocols, incredible traffic handling capabilities, numerous third-party integrations, MVC architecture support, and many more making it popular among developers and businesses. It does not mean that CodeIgniter is an inefficient framework, rather several web developers choose CodeIgniter over Laravel for several benefits such as error handling capabilities, user-friendly interface, hassle-free migration, ability to generate SEO-friendly URLs, and many more.

CodeIgniter is a Better Choice for a Web Development Project if:

• You are looking to develop a straightforward web development project especially for crafting an eCommerce website.
• You need a basic framework devoid of any built-in testing or database management capabilities.
• You require a minimalistic framework for developing scalable and simple websites.
• When app development speed becomes crucial, CodeIgniter is largely preferred. It is because CodeIgniter has a much higher execution and development speed as compared to Laravel.

From the above points and discussion, it is clear that both Laravel and CodeIgniter are powerful PHP web frameworks having their significance and unique features. Choosing one of them completely depends on the requirements of your business project. But make sure you wisely choose the best-suited framework by looking at these above-mentioned insights.

Conclusion:

The year 2023 has seen most of the debated topics and one of the topics is the comparison between Laravel and CodeIgniter. According to the Google trends report, Laravel has proved to be a better framework as compared to CodeIgniter mainly because of its coding pattern. But still, many developers choose CodeIgniter over Laravel because of its simplicity and more exploration facilities.

But there is no denying the fact that both these frameworks have their unique significance and advantages. But when you hire a leading PHP Development Company in India, they can help you choose the right framework for your web development project. Make sure you hire a company treasured with the industry’s best business analysts and technology experts who are capable enough of leading you in making the best choice between Laravel and CodeIgniter based on your business challenges. When you are in the hands of top professionals, you don’t need to worry about your next web application development project.