Laravel vs. Symfony – Which one to chose in 2023

Laravel vs. Symfony – PHP Framework is the most chosen solution when it comes to web development. You can find many different PHP frameworks in the industry, but Laravel and Symfony are the one of the most popular frameworks of this kind through web developers.

In the case of rapid web development, both the frameworks are great choices. They can help in developing apps that perfectly match all business requirements as well as easily adapt to future changes. Laravel and Symfony are similar frameworks in their ability to create cross-platform, multilingual content.

So Which one we should use between Laravel vs. Symfony for web development in 2023? Well.. you will find your answer in the below post so read carefully and enjoy./

Hey guys my name is Ilyas Hassan and I am a freelancer and a professional Web And Android developer and also i have been working in the tech industry for the past 3 years.We have done a full analysis of the features of each framework’s capabilities, as well as its pros and cons.After dicussing all those topics we will decide which one to use beetween Laravel vs. Symfony for web development in 2023.

What is laravel?

Laravel is a free and open source PHP web framework created by Taylor Otwell and intended for the development of web applications based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern and Symfony. Some of the features of Laravel are a modular packaging system with a dedicated dependency manager, various ways of accessing relational databases, utilities that aid in application deployment and maintenance, and its orientation towards syntactic sugar.

Laravel has a modular packaging system as well as Composer, a PHP language dependency manager dedicated to Laravel. It includes several methods for accessing relational databases as well as capabilities that help with database management and application deployment.

Laravel is a highly used PHP framework that is ideal for all types of enterprises. Expert PHP developers around the world have praised Laravel for its consistent performance, rich features, and adaptability, among other reasons.

As stated earlier, it is developed using the MVC structure, making it quite easy to develop and ultimately manage web applications. Additionally, it comes with a number of useful built-in features including authentication, sessions, routing, and mail, to name just a few. When all of these positive features and capabilities are combined, Laravel becomes an incredibly valuable piece of framework that all developers should be familiar with and be able to use easily.

What is Symfony?

Symfony is a free and open-source PHP web application framework and a set of reusable PHP component libraries. It was published on 18 October 2005 as a free software and was released under the MIT license.

Symfony mainly focuses on accelerating the creation and maintenance of web applications and also replace repetitive coding tasks. It aims to build robust applications in the enterprise context, and aims to give developers complete control over configuration: from directory structure to foreign libraries, almost everything can be customized. So that it matches enterprise development guidelines, Symfony is bundled with additional tools. To help developers test, debug and document projects.

To get the most out of the PHP framework Symfony, it can be structured using the MVC (Model View Controller) model. However, it is not a true MVC framework like Laravel. The primary concept behind the Symfony Framework is to eliminate difficulties in coding and save time throughout the web development process.

It is founded on the principle that users should be able to design software to their needs. Developers’ lives have been made easier by the availability of freely available framework components and high-end configurations. To use PHP5, the Symfony Framework serves as the foundation of your application. It mainly developes the overall design and structure of your product. In addition, it has 50 stand-alone components that are available for applications.

Laravel vs. Symfony – Similarities

The first is the most obvious – they both use PHP as their programming language.

They are cross-platform, meaning they are computer software that is implemented across multiple computing platforms.

Significantly, there is both multi-user and multi-language content. Both provide support for application scaffolding, patterns for interfaces, and text search.

Laravel vs. Symfony – Differences

Despite some similarities linking these two frameworks, we have been able to definitively point out differences as well.

Symfony can be named as a traditional PHP language – it can be modified in C# or Java, but of course, it has unique and one-of-a-kind elements that make it outstanding. Laravel emerged as the most popular PHP framework in 2022. It depends more on the methods and traits of the magic. This shortens the code and makes the whole framework easier to understand.

Symfony is designed for larger scale or more complex projects that have large features and is used by a large number of clients. At the same time, Laravel is related to the MVC design pattern, which is what was mentioned above. When it comes to scalability, if you choose Laravel, you should be aware of the need to write code to handle it. Symfony offers multiple platforms to maintain scalability – it gets a score.

Templating Engine – Symfony supplies Twig, but Laravel provides Blade, which has one big advantage – you can reuse code. That option is not present in Twig.
If you are interested in database support – both provide object-relational mapping for data access. Uses Symfony Doctrine, Laravel – Eloquent.

And last but not least – speed. Application speed in Laravel is similar to other PHP applications. It secures a proper version control system, which helps in the migration of applications later. If Symfony is implemented properly, the application speed improves. It adjusts to an individual core feature speed, so the entire application can easily decide which features are needed at the moment.

Laravel vs. Symfony – Speed and performance

Well, the fun fact about the speed and performance of both Laravel and Symfony is that Laravel is built with Symfony components, and the fun fact does not end here when Symfony is caching the source code. According to ThinkMobiles test results, websites built with Laravel are claimed to load in about 60 milliseconds, but websites built with Symfony are estimated to load in around 250 milliseconds.

Simple one-page applications for each framework perform a single action when the program is launched.

The task at hand was as follows:

  • Get 1,000 records from the database using the following formula: (each with a unique title, price, and stock).
  • Place a total no of 1,000 orders for all of them.
  • The stock count in the database should be updated.
  • Get an estimate for the full price of the purchase order.


Now let us discuss some other topics to decide between Laravel vs. Symfony.

Laravel vs. Symfony – Server requirements

Laravel requires : –

  • Laravel runs on PHP version > 5.6.4.
  • It requires openSSl PHP Extension.
  • PDO PHP Extension
  • Mbstring PHP Extension
  • Tokenizer PHP Extension
  • XML PHP Extension
  • Composer

Symphony requires : –

  • It runs on PHP >= 5.5.9
  • Requires JSON Extension
  • It requires ctype Extension
  • Your php.ini needs to have the date.timezone setting.

Installation Process

Before running the command, I’m going to show that you need to install the following:

  • PHP 7.2+
  • musician

When it comes to installation, they are both fairly easy to get started with, as both use Composer, there isn’t much mystery in it.

Installing laravel

Laravel often offers different ways of installing,But the easiest way to install is by running the following command.

composer create-project laravel/laravel lvlTest

Another way to install laravel is by running the following command

composer global require laravel/installer

And now run

laravel new lvlTest

Installing Symphony

The best and the easiest way to install symphony is by running the following command

composer create-project symfony/website-skeleton sfTest

Assuming that each dependency is met, that will leave you with a native web application that you can further customize to meet your needs.

An alternative installation method, which is actually recommended by Symfony, is to install a new binary to your system.

Should you choose this option, the command used to create a new project is:

symfony new sfTest --full

There are many advantages of using this method,One of the advantage is that you have a following important command

symfony check:requirements

Which will help you locate and eventually fix any missing dependencies.

Anyhow, upon successful installation you will get a welcome screen telling you what are the next steps.

Laravel Vs. Symfony – Directory structure

Now its time to compare the directory structure of laravel as well as symphony which will help us in deciding between them.

Laravel directory structure

In case of laravel you will see this : –

In the case of Laravel, the code is distributed along the following directories:

  • The app holds the core code of your application
  • Database is where you put all your database related code (migration, initialization scripts, models, etc…)
  • In tests you would store your test code
  • Your templates and other static files will be stored on resources

The configuration will mostly remain within the configuration, although the URL-to-controller mapping will be stored in routes

Symphony directory structure

In case of laravel you will see this : –

In symphony your code will be organized as follow -:

  • src will contain all your business logic (entities, containers, services, etc…).
  • Templates will contain presentation code (mostly html-like files)
  • The test will be stored in the test directory
  • The location of the migration database upgrade script would be


And then there are other artifacts that have a special place in the project:

  • The bin is where you’ll find useful CLI tools
  • Vendor is where dependencies reside (common behavior for every Composer-based application)
  • config is where the configuration will be
  • In translations you would put i18n related resources
  • var is a directory used internally by the framework, mostly for optimization purposes

Finally, the public directory will be the point of contact with the outside world, here you will find the application’s entry point: the index.php file.

Laravel Vs. Symfony – Template Engine

Laravel

The Laravel uses Blade, a lightweight yet powerful template engine optimized for performance. Blade, unlike other PHP templating engines, allows you to use plain PHP code in your view. All Blade views compiled into standard PHP code are cached indefinitely until they are modified. Because of these, the Blade templating engine has little impact on the overall performance of your application.

Symphony

Symfony uses Twig, which was developed by Fabian Potential. if we compare it to PHP templates, Twig allows you to develop many more compact, legible templates that are more web designer-friendly and powerful in a variety of ways.

You are also not limited to this. Twig can be used in Laravel using the TwigBridge project, which allows seamless integration of Twig into Laravel 5.

Thus, when it comes to Symfony vs Laravel, the choice between Twig and Blade comes down to two points for many developers. For starters, you are easily able to use standard PHP code in Blade. Some Laravel developers appreciate it because it simplifies development. In addition, the Blade has a number of features that Twig does not have. Unlike Blade, which allows code reuse and direct injection into the template, Twig does not allow such functionality. Lumen is a sub-framework included with Laravel that facilitates the creation of microservices and APIs

Laravel Vs. Symfony – Pros and Cons

Laravel

Pros :

  • It stays updated with the newest version of PHP features.
  • It allows you the integration of apps and also one of the most popular email services through API.
  • It is also compatible with many other third-party platforms and libraries.
  • It has a large ecosystem of additional tools.

Cons :

  • Some of the applications built into Laravel can be too heavy to load fast on mobile.
  • Updates are not compatible – It is possible that if you update Laravel to a newer version, you may break the code.

Symphony

Pros :

  • A significant amount of developers are actively using Symfony. Its community is one of the largest in the market.
  • It has a market of well known platforms like Drupal, Magento and eZ Publish which uses Symfony, so it is a good recommendation for this framework.
  • Symfony is updated regularly to keep it up-to-date with the needs of web developers.

Cons :

  • At the start, you may find Symfony harder to learn than other PHP frameworks.
  • It relies on other technologies to make some applications load slower – native elements are lacking.
  • Because of the need to pre-build code for multiple uses, it requires more time to test, and as a result, the development process is slower.

ConclusionLaravel Vs. Symfony

As stated earlier, both Laravel and Symfony are frameworks with a large number of features. Both can be used for a variety of web development projects, and they are both free.

Just because of speed and performance laravel is a very famous choise. With Symfony, you can quickly and easily build complex, large-scale online applications. But, if you ask me and my personal opinion then I would prefer to choose Laravel as it is very flexible and widely used among all top tier companies.

To put it another way, select the option that best suits your project. When it comes to developing web apps, make sure you choose the PHP framework you are most comfortable with. If you are still confused to choose between Laravel or Symfony then contact our expert developers, they will help to provide you the best web development solution.


Is their ant other PHP frameworks?

Yes other than laravel and symphony their are many other frameworks,Some of them are Codeigniter, Zend Framework, Phalcon, FuelPHP, CakePHP, Yii, PHpixie, and Slim.

Does laravel symphony?

At a glance, there’s one main difference between Symfony and Laravel which is that Symfony is both an Application Framework and a set of reusable components, while Laravel is simply a Framework. In fact, Laravel uses quite a few of Symfony’s components.


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Hi, I'm Ilyas Hassan Founder And Author Of This Website DevXilyas. A Blog Where You Can Find The Latest Information About Tech, Programing, And Gaming. I love learning new things about Tech, Programming, And Gaming. That’s why I created this Website to share information. Read More

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