When it comes to web development, PHP is unchallenged. It’s the driving force behind 79% of all web pages. To make PHP more adaptable, developers organised and packaged several frequently used functions into bundles called PHP frameworks.
Two of the most popular PHP frameworks are CodeIgniter and Laravel. The current state of the internet is greatly indebted to the quality of their products and services.
One of these web development technologies is ideal if you want to create a web application or enter the field of web development. However, it raises the question, “Which one Laravel or CodeIgniter?”
In this post, we’ll take a look at the architecture, important features, key differences, and users of both frameworks in an effort to provide an answer to that issue. Is it CodeIgniter or Laravel, then? Let’s dive in!
What is CodeIgniter?
CodeIgniter, like other PHP frameworks, helps you avoid duplicating your effort by enforcing a consistent structure for your PHP code. Despite being a PHP framework, it has a very small memory footprint and significantly boosts speed.
According to SimilarTech, 99,887 websites use CodeIgniter, of which 74,135 have unique domains. If you’re looking for a lightweight yet feature-rich PHP framework, CodeIgniter is your best bet.
While there are other PHP web frameworks that are comparable, CodeIgniter stands out because to its numerous features. You can take help from dedicated codeigniter web developers to ease your work.
Key Characteristics of CodeIgniter
Here are some of CodeIgniter’s most notable capabilities:
The CodeIgniter MVC framework separates the logic and presentation modules, which speeds up development time and improves performance. The request is handled by the controller, the model’s action is carried out by the database, and the results are rendered by the views.
CodeIgniter is quick and nimble because it relies on a limited number of core libraries and only loads larger ones when they’re needed. Thus, CodeIgniter develops not just quick web applications, but also MVPs and prototypes.
CodeIgniter has reliable built-in security features, including the ability to encrypt and decode data. For the safety of your online applications, it provides XSS filtering, CSRF protection, password management, and input data validation. The likes of SQL injection, XSS, and remote code execution are rendered useless against it.
CodeIgniter’s libraries and tools make coding easier by providing prebuilt forms, arrays, file management, cookies, strings, and directories, among other features.
What is Laravel?
Laravel is a PHP framework that reduces the complexity of PHP and streamlines the development process. It saves time and effort by providing a variety of pre-built components and templates for use in creating a PHP application.
Laravel makes an estimated $5.7 million a year. Many programmers choose for Laravel because of its thriving community and plenty of readily available packages and extensions. Thanks to Laravel, PHP development has become more efficient and advanced. A Laravel development company in USA can help you grasp more about it.
Key Characteristics of Laravel
Laravel’s many capabilities combine to make for a stunning and powerful website. Now we’ll go through the fundamentals of the Laravel framework:
Blade, Laravel’s templating engine, is a lightweight alternative to other options. Using it, you can design beautiful layouts with seamless CSS integration and highly functional JavaScript frameworks. The dynamic template engine also allows for easy layout customization and maintenance without the need for programming.
Laravel’s ActiveRecord implementation for database interaction is a model of elegance in the realm of object-relational mapping (ORM). Database queries may be written in PHP instead of SQL. Assigning matching models to programmes and database tables helps it run faster than earlier PHP frameworks.
Laravel’s MVC design keeps the presentation layer and the business logic in their own places, which speeds up development. It improves documentation, has many useful features already implemented, is more secure and scalable, and runs faster. In addition, MVC reduces the complexity of unstructured code, which is very helpful for large-scale endeavours.
In order to modify the database schema using PHP code, Laravel provides a migration mechanism. Because of Laravel’s schema generators, database migration may take place without any lost information. You may move without any downtime or data loss thanks to our automated procedure.
A Comprehensive Analysis of CodeIgniter and Laravel
Due to their differences, the two PHP frameworks are best suited for various aspects of web development. For instance, whereas CodeIgniter does not support object-relational mapping (ORM), Laravel does, so web developers may reap its full advantages.
Laravel is built with modularity capabilities already in place, but CodeIgniter’s modules must be formed by developers using the modular extension. Laravel is a full-stack development framework best suited to creating powerful and complicated applications, whereas CodeIgniter is a minimalistic microframework best suited to creating basic apps.
Construction, updates, DBMS support, in-built modules, popularity, facilities, support, testing, database model, authentication, HTTP support, learning curve, and many other factors separate Laravel and CodeIgniter from one another. Both are widely used, however they are best suited for various web development projects.
The following table compares CodeIgniter vs Laravel based on a number of criteria:
Learning curve
The beginning stages of learning Laravel may be rather challenging. This is due to the fact that Laravel has many more features. CodeIgniter is less difficult to learn than Laravel.
Construction & Maintenance
Laravel’s file structure is built on the MVC paradigm, and it includes a command-line tool called Artisans for construction and maintenance. CodeIgniter facilitates onboarding and uses the MVC model.
Support for Database Management System
Laravel is compatible with a wide variety of database management systems, including as Microsoft SQL Server, ORACLE, MySQL, IBM DB2, PostgreSQL, and JDBC-compliant databases.
Databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Microsoft Business Intelligence are all supported by CodeIgniter. In addition to Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and DB2, it also works with many other popular databases.
Built-in Modules
Modules are pre-assembled as part of the framework’s architecture to enable developers break down complex projects into manageable chunks.
This framework lacks any inherent modularity features. Developers need to use Modular Extensions for creating and updating modules.
Popularity
Laravel’s rise to prominence may be attributed to its adaptable, readable code.This is what makes Laravel so attractive to programmers. CodeIgniter’s ease of use is a major selling point for the programming community.
API Construction & Template Engine
Laravel’s Blade template engine is a powerful and user-friendly tool for PHP developers looking to enhance their web applications’ performance.
CodeIgniter does not have a built-in template engine like Laravel has. Website performance may be increased and regular tasks performed by users thanks to its incorporation with smart and third-party templating engine tools used by developers.
Testing
When it comes to testing, Laravel and CodeIgniter diverge significantly. The PHP unit is a powerful tool that Laravel makes available to its developers for use in testing application code.
However, developers are unable to test code in CodeIgniter since the framework lacks an integrated unit testing tool. Developers use supplementary unit testing tools to get access to the code for this same purpose.
Authentication
Because of the authentication class trait in Laravel, applying authentication and authorisation rules is a breeze. Authentication features are not incorporated into CodeIgniter.
Use cases
Enterprise applications, apps with backend data management, IoT infrastructure, highly secure applications, e-learning web sites, etc. are all possible use cases for Laravel.
The majority of applications built using the CodeIgniter framework are e-commerce, invoicing management, payroll online, on-demand, and SaaS-based.
Conclusion
The greatest PHP frameworks for creating web apps are Laravel and CodeIgniter.While learning Laravel may first seem more challenging than learning CodeIgniter, you may find that the more sophisticated capabilities it provides are just what you need for your website.
CodeIgniter, on the other hand, is a robust PHP framework that is simple to learn and ideal for small web applications that don’t need advanced security measures.
Comparing Laravel vs CodeIgniter, it’s clear that Laravel’s database-agnostic migrations trait makes database schema conversion simpler, whereas CodeIgniter’s may not support any particular capabilities to speed the process.