CodeIgniter and Laravel are the two most popular PHP frameworks which is precisely why PHP is still relevant for developing web applications. PHP is used 82% of the time for web development and no wonder Laravel and CodeIgniter are used an ample number of times given the popularity of the two frameworks. Then, should one decide which PHP framework to use for a new web application between the two frameworks? Let’s compare the PHP frameworks CodeIgniter and Laravel and see which is ideal for a web application.
What is CodeIgniter?
CodeIgniter is an easy-to-learn, small yet powerful, and rich toolkit to develop full-fledged, dynamic web applications. It was developed in 2006 by EllisLab. While its footprint is small, it enables third-party plugins for all the functionalities that need to be delivered in web applications. It has 18.2k stars on Github as of this month.
Features of CodeIgniter
1. Lightweight Framework
CodeIgniter is a lightweight PHP framework with a small footprint, allowing for faster execution and better performance. This makes it ideal for developers looking to build fast, scalable applications without the overhead of more complex frameworks like Laravel.
2. MVC Architecture
CodeIgniter follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, which makes it easier to separate business logic from the presentation layer, improving code organization and maintainability.
3. Built-in Security Features
CodeIgniter offers built-in security features like XSS filtering and CSRF protection, ensuring that your applications are secure from common web vulnerabilities. This security-first approach makes it a solid choice when handling user data.
4. Error Logging
The framework includes a robust error logging class that allows you to store error messages as text files, making it easier to debug applications during the development process.
5. Simple URL Routing
With CodeIgniter’s simple and flexible URL routing, developers can easily create clean and SEO-friendly URLs, which is a great asset for enhancing your application’s SEO performance.
6. Extensible and Modular
CodeIgniter supports modular applications via ExpressionEngine, enabling the breakdown of complex apps into smaller, manageable components. This makes it easier to build and maintain large-scale applications.
7. Database Support
CodeIgniter supports various databases such as MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and even MongoDB (a feature that distinguishes CodeIgniter vs Laravel in terms of database flexibility). This broad support gives developers flexibility in choosing their preferred database system.
8. Easy Migration
Migrating applications from codeigniter to Laravel or between servers is straightforward, thanks to its simple migration process, making it hassle-free even with large data sets.
9. Fast Performance
One of the key advantages in the laravel vs codeigniter performance comparison is CodeIgniter’s speed. It’s known for fast execution times, even with minimal server resources.
Pros of CodeIgniter
Let’s see the features and advantages of CodeIgniter here:
- Easy learning curve: Having a small footprint and being a lightweight framework has its advantages. It is one of the easiest frameworks to master.
- Security: Security is enhanced using the CodeIgniter framework with its XSS filtering.
- Documentation support: CodeIgniter has profound and extensive documentation as compared to the other PHP frameworks.
- Error Logging: CodeIgniter comes with an error logging class that allows error messages to be saved as text files. By default, CodeIgniter displays all PHP errors.
- Flexibility: CodeIgniter offers great flexibility in creating dynamic web applications for a responsive website experience.
- Modularity: CodeIgniter achieves modularity by collaborating with the Expression Engine. The Expression Engine is a collection of user-friendly templates.
- Active Developer Community: The active community is always on its mark to help the developers when stuck with any issues.
- Easy migration: Whenever server/database migration is warranted, CodeIgniter is the right choice. Irrespective of the tremendous amount of data, CodeIgniter makes the entire migration process hassle-free, especially with the technical glitches the developers face during migration.
Cons of the CodeIgniter Framework
- Tedious code maintainability: Updating, modifying, or maintaining the code is a tiresome process in Codeigniter
- Limited Libraries: As compared to the other PHP frameworks or the latest frameworks, CodeIgniter libraries are exhaustive.
- Stagnant Growth: The development in CodeIgniter has more or less become stagnant with fewer updates, due to which the versions are getting outdated.
What is Laravel?
It is a licensed framework from MIT, however, it is free and open-source with its source code hosted on GitHub. It works on the MVC architectural pattern and is based on the other PHP framework Symfony. Laravel is highly popular with 67.6k stars on GitHub. Around 650k active websites are built using Laravel. Some of the top websites built using the Laravel framework are Invoice Ninja, Alison, Barchart, and Alphacoders, among many more.
Features of Laravel
1. Comprehensive Artisan CLI
Laravel’s Artisan command-line interface (CLI) is a major feature, offering automation for repetitive tasks such as database migrations and seeding. Artisan also streamlines unit testing, making the development process more efficient.
2. Blade Templating Engine
The built-in Blade templating engine allows developers to write clean, readable code and offers template inheritance, which saves time when developing complex user interfaces. This is a big win in the laravel vs codeigniter comparison, as CodeIgniter lacks a native templating engine.
3. Advanced ORM – Eloquent
Laravel’s Eloquent ORM is a powerful tool for working with databases, providing an easy, expressive syntax for querying and interacting with databases. This makes Laravel a preferred choice for developers who want a more streamlined database experience compared to CodeIgniter.
4. Built-in Authentication
Laravel has in-built authentication functionality, making it easy for developers to implement features such as user login and registration. In comparison, CodeIgniter lacks native authentication, requiring custom implementations.
5. MVC Architecture
Like CodeIgniter, Laravel follows the MVC pattern, but it offers more advanced tools and libraries for creating modular and scalable applications, making it a robust option for enterprise-level projects.
6. RESTful Routing
Laravel simplifies the process of building RESTful APIs with its built-in RESTful routing system, which provides better support for complex web applications that need to serve mobile, desktop, or third-party clients.
7. Unit Testing
Laravel is built with PHPUnit integrated, providing extensive support for unit testing out of the box. This makes continuous integration and deployment easier, especially when compared to codeigniter to laravel, where additional third-party tools are often needed.
8. Database Migration
Laravel’s database migration tools make it easier to evolve your database schema over time without downtime. This is particularly useful when working on large projects where the database structure needs to change frequently.
9. Large Active Community
Laravel boasts a huge developer community, which means that it’s easy to find plugins, third-party integrations, and community support. In the codeigniter vs laravel debate, Laravel often wins in terms of developer resources and community engagement.
10. Performance Optimization Tools
Although Laravel is known for being slower than CodeIgniter, it provides performance optimization tools such as route caching and view caching, which can mitigate performance issues and boost overall speed.
Pros of Laravel
We will understand the advantages of the Laravel framework here:
Extensive tools: Laravel comes pre-packaged with tools for tasks like user authentication, debugging, testing APIs, etc.
Blade Templating Engine: Laravel comes with a Blade templating engine which makes writing the syntax an easier process while building complex web applications. The primary benefits of Blade are template inheritance and sections.
Artisan CLI: Laravel’s Artisan CLI enables code automation for recurring tasks. All the boilerplates for managing databases and migrations are handled easily with the Artisan CLI.
Reverse Routing: The reverse routing in Laravel helps in creating appropriate URLs. It specifies the relationship between the Laravel routes and URL links and the link is created based on the route name.
Automated testing with PHPUnit: Laravel is built keeping testing in mind. All you have to do is run the PHPUnit on the command line to run the tests on any Laravel application. The PHPUnit simulates the user behavior to test all the functions in the web application.
Query Builder with Eloquent ORM: The query builder in Laravel offers an easy interface to build all the database operations from a basic DB connection to perform CRUD operations, aggregates, etc. The Eloquent Object Relational Mapper enables the developer to access the objects without the need to understand how the objects are related to the source.
Cons of Laravel Framework
- Data Congestion: The lightweight feature of the Laravel framework negatively impacts the processing of database queries. It forms data congestion leading to lowered performance.
- Unreliable library integration: As the community for Laravel is large and supports and publishes a large number of third-party libraries, it becomes difficult for a developer to assess which libraries are reliable and which are not.
CodeIgniter Vs Laravel
In this section, we will compare the two PHP frameworks — Laravel and CodeIgniter:
Learning Curve
CodeIgniter, with its smaller footprint, is easier for a beginner to learn and master. Laravel, with its many additional features, is a little more difficult to learn.
CodeIgniter wins.
Performance and Speed
Laravel-based applications are said to be slower, although the community suggests that the speed can be improved. Nevertheless, CodeIgniter applications are known for being fast and scalable.
CodeIgniter wins.
Connectivity with other DBMS
Both CodeIgniter and Laravel support Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL Server, IBM DB2, and PostgreSQL. However, CodeIgniter also supports Power BI and MongoDB, whereas Laravel does not natively support MongoDB.
CodeIgniter wins.
Popularity
Laravel is the most popular PHP framework, with many experienced developers preferring it. CodeIgniter is also well-known for its ease of use but isn’t as widely adopted.
Laravel wins.
Built-in Modules
Laravel is designed with built-in modularity features, allowing developers to break complex web applications into small modules. CodeIgniter, on the other hand, supports modularity using Expression Engine, but it is not as robust as Laravel’s approach.
Laravel wins.
Template Engine
Laravel includes an in-built template engine called Blade, which is very powerful and easy to use. CodeIgniter does not have an in-built template engine but can connect with tools like Smarty to handle templating.
Laravel wins.
Community and Documentation
Both Laravel and CodeIgniter have extensive documentation and active communities that provide support to developers.
Both draw.
Unit Testing
Laravel provides built-in support for unit testing through PHPUnit, helping developers test and debug continuously. CodeIgniter lacks a built-in unit testing feature, requiring third-party tools to perform tests.
Laravel wins.
Programming Paradigm
Laravel follows a component-oriented programming paradigm, whereas CodeIgniter is object-oriented and event-driven.
Both draw.
Authentication
Laravel offers a built-in authentication class that simplifies the process of implementing user authentication. CodeIgniter does not have built-in authentication, requiring developers to write custom code or use third-party libraries.
Laravel wins.
Security
Laravel provides many built-in security features, including CSRF protection, encryption, and SQL injection prevention, making it highly secure. CodeIgniter also offers security features, but some need to be manually configured by developers.
Laravel wins.
Routing
Laravel uses an expressive and advanced routing system that allows developers to create complex routes. CodeIgniter’s routing system is simple and straightforward, but less flexible compared to Laravel.
Laravel wins.
Conclusion
When comparing CodeIgniter vs Laravel, CodeIgniter shines in performance, ease of learning, and database connectivity, making it a good choice for small-scale applications. On the other hand, Laravel vs CodeIgniter favors Laravel for its modularity, built-in features, and community support, making it the go-to framework for complex and large-scale projects.
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FAQs about Laravel vs. CodeIgniter
1. Which is better for beginners, Laravel or CodeIgniter?
CodeIgniter is usually better for beginners because it has a smaller footprint and an easier learning curve. Laravel, while feature-rich though can be more difficult for new developers to master.
2. How does Laravel compare to CodeIgniter regarding performance and speed?
CodeIgniter tends to outperform Laravel in terms of speed and scalability. Due to its extensive feature set, Laravel applications can be slow, although performance can be improved with the right techniques.
3. Which PHP framework does better database connectivity, Laravel or CodeIgniter?
Both Laravel and CodeIgniter support databases including MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. However, CodeIgniter also natively supports Power BI and MongoDB, giving an edge in database connectivity.
4. Why is Laravel more popular than CodeIgniter for web development?
Laravel is very popular for its extensive built-in features such as the Blade templating engine, Artisan CLI, and Eloquent ORM. These tools make development more efficient and offer significantly improved capabilities compared to CodeIgniter.
5. Does Laravel or CodeIgniter offer better support for unit testing?
Laravel excels in unit testing with its built-in PHPUnit integration, which allows for continuous testing and debugging. CodeIgniter does not have a native unit testing feature, it requires third-party devices to perform the same tasks.
