Codeigniter vs Laravel - which is better for your next web project?

In 2018, it is common that PHP developers make comparisons between various frameworks on the basis of what they offer, their advantages and disadvantages. There are quite a number of PHP MVC frameworks available on the web. CodeIgniter and Laravel seem to be the most popular among them. Many forums are replete with discussions pitting one framework with the other, like CodeIgniter vs Laravel. The PHP based frameworks CodeIgniter and Laravel are best known for the ultimate support in website development. Both these PHP frameworks are reliable, secure as well as faster for developing web applications. But, still, differences exist between the two.

So how do these frameworks fare? Which one is popular than the other? Which framework offers better features? Such questions still line up!

Here, in this post, we explore the differences between Laravel and CodeIgniter. It will help you to choose the better one for your projects.

CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter is an open-source software rapid development web framework, for use in building dynamic websites with PHP. It's loosely based on the popular model view controller (MVC) development pattern. While controller classes are a necessary part of development under CodeIgniter, models and views are optional. Codeigniter can be also modified to use Hierarchical Model View Controller which allows developers to maintain modular grouping of Controller, Models and View arranged in a subdirectory format. The first public version of CodeIgniter was released by EllisLab on February 28, 2006. CodeIgniter is most often noted for its speed when compared to other PHP frameworks.

Laravel

Laravel is a free, open-source PHP web framework, created by Taylor Otwell and intended for the development of web applications following the model view controller (MVC) architectural pattern and based on Symfony. Some of its features are a modular packaging system with a dedicated dependency manager, different ways for accessing relational databases, utilities that aid in application deployment and maintenance, and its orientation toward syntactic sugar. Taylor Otwell created Laravel as an attempt to provide a more advanced alternative to the CodeIgniter framework, which did not provide certain features such as built-in support for user authentication and authorization. Laravel's first beta release was made available on June 9, 2011, followed by the Laravel 1 release later in the same month. Laravel included built-in support for authentication, localization, models, views, sessions, routing and other mechanisms. The source code of Laravel is hosted on GitHub and licensed under the terms of MIT License.

CodeIgniter vs Laravel

• The large community will never let Codeigniter die! You cannot realize how many people are using Codeigniter for small but also large projects right now. This framework has a very big community.

• Codeigniter is the best-documented framework that exists in PHP right now. It is really well documented.

• Codeigniter is stable enough and tested by many users.

• Codeigniter is very easy to use even if you don’t know about MVC architecture. A really good start especially for Newbies that only used pure PHP to their projects.

• In Codeigniter, really 0 configurations to start working with CI. CI 3 is promising more stability and more organized unit tests.

• The templating engine, which is inbuilt in CodeIgniter, is easy to use and is based on mustache-like templating language. Learning this language is simple even for new developers.

• CodeIgniter offers output caching. Web pages can be cached so that the loading time can be reduced. Besides, efficiency and performance can be enhanced.

• Laravel framework is designed for the PHP's latest version. Therefore, unit testing support and authentication, which are the base development components, are inbuilt. It is commendable that Laravel framework folds with the blade template engine in a smooth manner.

• Laravel offers expressive, elegant syntax; such has been its design.

• Laravel developer will enjoy the development process. Routing, authentication, sessions are some tasks, which are commonly performed, and make easier for the developer.

• Use of libraries and models is easier as Laravel has object-oriented libraries. These libraries are supported with autocomplete feature.

• Laravel has its own command-line interface. Called as Artisan, it enables developers to perform abundant tasks.

• Object-Relational Mapping or ORM in Laravel is simple, eloquent and fast. Developers will find it very easy to organize the application's database.

• Laravel is best suited for building RESTful APIs. Apart from that, It handles event queuing nicely.

• Codeigniter additionally supports other popular databases like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, and others. On the other hand, Laravel provides database schema builder which lets developers design databases easily without writing complex code.

• Laravel comes with built-in template engine called Blade. It lets developers optimize the performance of a web application by changing the views. It is essential for better performance and from user and SEO perspectives. On the other hand, Codeigniter does not have any built-in template engine and one has to use third-party Smartly to optimize and boost the performance of the web application developed in it.

• Laravel comes with authentication class to better authorization and authentication check. Codeigniter still does not have such built-in features and everything has to be implemented by coding.

• Laravel provides more security to your web application. It lets the developers enable custom HTTPS routes and they can choose specific URL for each HTTPS route to make the transfer of sensitive information more secure. By hacking into one of the routes, a hacker cannot get information of all the data passing from one user to the server and vice versa. Furthermore, it automatically attaches HTTPS protocol to all available URLs. But when you hire Codeigniter experts, you have to specifically mention to create specific HTTPS routes by coding.

 

Well, the PHP developers still need to evaluate added features of Laravel and CodeIgniter according to the demands of projects requirements. This would help them to select the perfect PHP framework for website development. Both frameworks are unique and similar in many ways have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. However, it is the requirements of your projects that decide which is to be preferred. All that said, if you are working on modern apps, it is suggested you go for Laravel. Every Laravel developer company attributes their ease of web development to this framework.

Let us know which one is better according to you. You can also share your development experiences with us in the comment section. Thank you!