One of the best programming languages, PHP has been extensively used for developing websites and applications. PHP has evolved overtime and came up with a number of frameworks, such as CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Phalcon, Zend, Yii and Symfony.
Each framework has its own features, benefits and drawbacks. However, in this article we will mainly discuss some of the significant features of Symfony that makes it one of the best PHP frameworks.
Symfony is extensively used by the web developers because of its structured architecture, ORM, templates, multitude of libraries, code security and unity modules. Let us see how these features work together to help build even the most complicated applications in the easiest way.
Top 5 Features of Symfony
#1 Structured MVC Architecture
Symfony works on MVC (model-view-controller) architecture that is simply great for scalable and systematic website development projects. MVC architecture ensures that project is developed with structured file system divided into Model, View and Controller.
This speeds up and simplifies the development process by keeping business and presentation layer isolated from each other. Thus, allowing users to add new features and functionalities without investing extra time and effort.
#2 Pre-established Directory Structure
In addition to strictly organized sub-folders in the project folder, Symfony creates its own support folders based on the user input. This results in the creation of the model of the project that could be later improved using views and controllers.
Programmers usually need to work only on the database while the rest of the things are managed by Symfony itself. On the contrary, Vanilla PHP needs building of the whole directory structure from the scratch.
#3 Rich 30 Independent Components
Symfony provides 30 standalone components, which are reusable and decoupled PHP libraries that provide a basic foundation for a PHP project. The developers also have the option to use these components independently, thereby completing the common tasks without writing lengthy codes. Within Symfony, you can take advantage of console, asset, finder, debug, security, routing, templating, form and validator tools.
#4 Robust Dependency Manager: Composer
The tool that manages all the Symfony components is the Composer. Composer is an efficient dependency management tool that can be used to download and install numerous components and external packages in Symfony.
The Symfony developers can easily declare the libraries without putting much effort. The additional feature of this tool is that none of the downloaded components are enabled automatically. Which means you can use them whenever you require them.
#5 Symfony Profiler
One of the most difficult challenges for developers is to maintain the health of the application. Symfony Profiler monitors the behavior of the application by mapping all the actions and back-end activities. This Profiler appears as an informative panel at the bottom of the project that can also be expanded into a full-fledged dashboard that shows the complete details of various activities such as routing, user authentication and end-to-end logging.
It is no surprise that Symfony has quickly grown to become one of the top PHP frameworks. However, the popularity of PHP is hurdled by its complexity of learning. The beginners have to put a lot of time and efforts to learn and understand the use of Symfony components effectively.
