When starting your
startup, it is very important that you choose the right
development technology and a
good development company.
Software development is a key part of every startup. The goal of each software is to bring value to the user. This value can be obtained by saving time, saving money, digital transformation, security, etc. In order to create the value, all segments of the software should be consistent and function perfectly, like a
symphony. Quite coincidentally, the PHP framework, that we want to recommend is called
Symfony.
First, let's see how much
PHP is popular in the web application market. As official sources claim, the share of
PHP is
79%!
It is possible to use pure
PHP to develop web applications, but we often decide to use some
PHP frameworks like
Symfony. Why?
Before we begin a detailed description of the
Symfony, let's first see what is the
framework and what are the advantages.
The framework is a set of ready-made parts of the program that can be reused. The goal of the framework is to speed up the development of the software. Also, since the already pre-tested code has been used, the quality of development is higher. Frameworks contain good practices of the given programming language.
There are many reasons why we should use frameworks:
- Faster development. Since the framework contains finished parts of the code, this significantly accelerates the development of a web application.
- Easier maintenance. Since the frameworks come up with already well-defined good practices, which are well tested, less time is spent on maintenance. Also, there is less chance of creating bugs so that later, considerably less time is spent on maintenance.
- Better security. The framework components are supported with timely upgrades and enhancement of security.
Why we should choose Symfony as a development framework?
The leading PHP framework to create websites and web applications. Built on top of the Symfony Components.
1. Strong reference behind the framework
Symfony is one of the few frameworks behind which is a strong company -
SensioLabs.
SensioLabs constantly invests in the development and improvement of the framework itself. Because they use a
Symfony in their business, it's a good guarantee that a framework will have a stable
development.
2. Unlimited flexibility
In its base, the
Symfony contains much useful functionality. The two most important functionalities are the ability to create bundles and components.
The
bundle is a set of program resources, in the case of Symfony, these are PHP, javascript, CSS or Twig files, which define a certain functionality or set of functionality. Basically, the bundle is very similar to the plugin.
Bundles are easy to develop and you can reconfigure and reuse them for many applications to reduce the overall development cost.
The
components are generic features that reduce the routine tasks and allow developers to focus on specific business features. There are 30 helpful Symfony components that facilitate the development process. You can use components independently and add your own custom modules with no trouble to the architecture.
3. Proven in real life
Unlike others,
Symfony proved in practice. There are many projects that have been developed using the Symfony framework. A number of
software companies are also choosing
Symfony. Even many frameworks and CMS have taken the
Symfony as their basis.
CMS:
Drupal,
Joomla!,
Magento,
PrestaShop
Frameworks:
Laravel,
OroCRM,
Akeneo PIM,
Yii,
CakePHP

4. Long-term support
Symfony is a stable and well-tested framework with regular updates. The most recent versions stay long-term supported and compatible with the newer releases: up to 3 years for some of the versions.
5. Testing
Whenever you write a new line of code, you also potentially add new bugs. To build better and more reliable applications, you should test your code using both functional and unit tests.
Symfony provides both. Symfony integrates with
PHP library
PHPUnit to support rich testing functionality.
- Unit tests are a way to test single class functionalities.
- Functional tests check the integration of the different layers of a web application.
6. Big community
Symfony is very popular with
PHP developers. For this reason, the
community is very large, there are many places on the Internet where useful tips and tutorials can be found. There are also more and more events with the theme of
Symfony.
Symfony Community is a passionate group of over 600,000 developers from more than 120 countries, all committed to helping PHP surpass the impossible.
7. Documentation
When we get to know about new technology, the most important thing for us is that it is well documented.
Symfony has one of the best documents we have ever met. For this reason, the process of learning the framework itself is quite fast, and for professionals, it is easy to keep up with new changes.
Conclusion
Symfony is a powerful
PHP framework that allows us to fast development of demanding web applications. In addition to speed, the
Symfony is highly reliable and offers excellent performance.
Lilly021 has positive experiences in using the
Symfony framework on several projects with a large number of users. Due to all of the above, we consider Symfony very good technology for
developing web application and
startup projects.