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Discover the top 5 micro-frameworks in PHP Development!

May 10, 2020

micro frameworks in php

Microframework

The microframework or the “non-full-stack framework” in PHP is the leaner version of the full stack services that consists of the limited set of functions and libraries that are considered as the elementary necessities for developing a website. It could be thought of as the flesh-less framework that strips off the components that do not have any utility while developing a small application. The microframework can exist as a single whole and can be upgraded to a full-stack framework when the project grows bigger or the development process expands. A microframework typically has less than 5000 lines of code or less than 5K libraries. 

Having less number of features and APIs makes the microframeworks light, quick, and easy to test and deploy. As compared to a full-stack framework, a microframework peels down the following- 

  • Authentication
  • Web Template Engine
  • Roles and Accounts 

The full-stack frameworks fundamentally consist of a wide range of features, modules, and libraries that assist the developers in building complex websites. But at times, the small and the light-weight applications require fewer features and hence micro frameworks found their way into the world of development. Talking about the PHP microframeworks, the following have marked their names in the list of the top ones.

The Top PHP Microframeworks embraced by the developers- 

  1. Slim: Josh Lockhart, the creator of the Slim framework in PHP has enabled the developers to create APIs that are fast and light. The basic need for the core features required in a small project can be catered by Slim. The open-source microframework has enabled the development of powerful web applications with features like provisioning of HTTP Routers, middleware to tweak HTTP requests and response, dependency injection, and PSR-7 Support. 
     
  2. Silex: Built by adopting the components of Symphony and Pimple and inspired by the Ruby framework- Sinatra, Silex is another microframework used to develop the small projects. It is a controller framework and was released under the MIT license. The conciseness, extensibility, and testability enable building simple single-file apps. Silex makes use of Symfony’s HTTPKernels to abstract request and response and is equipped with a simple dependency injection container.
     
  3. Lumen: Lumen microframework covers the fleshless microservices and API of Laravel. The “Lumen” project was developed by Taylor Otwell to create the mini-tasks rapidly. It can process up to 1900 req/sec and has been noted as the high-speed framework even when compared to the similar micro-frameworks in PHP development like Slim or Silex. The easy syntax and feature offerings like eloquent, error and logging, cashes, etc. make Lumen micro-framework acceptable. 
     
  4. Zend Expressive: Zend, the giant framework in the PHP development community gives birth to it’s younger version – Zend Expressive. The skeleton structure of the latter one has DI (Dependency Injection),  router, error handler as the core components. Zend Expressive provides full support to the PSR-15 standard as well.  Moreover, you have the choice to pick the Zend components or the third-party components while using the Zend Expressive microframework for your minimal featured project development.
     
  5. Phalcon Micro: The flexible, slimmer version of Phalcon is used to develop the micro-applications. Phalcon is written in C language and supplied as PHP extensions, provisions the high performance of the apps. The projects developed in  Phalcon micro are written with minimal code and so the applications are thin and sleek. The micro component of Phalcon is used to create the REST API in Phalcon. It turns out to be one of the most promising microframeworks in PHP that can be extended to provide full-stack services as Phalcon. Summing Up

To conclude, the best PHP microframeworks have helped the well-seasoned developers to create seamless and flawless software services. Additionally, the recourse to upgrade or expand these micro-services to the parent full-stack frameworks as and when required, has been a boon for the developers to use of the microframeworks. So which has been your preferred micro-framework in PHP?

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