Design your way

Looking for a PHP boilerplate? PHP Boilerplates are in fact minimal PHP projects you can use to launch a development task faster and simpler than usual.

You shouldn’t confuse them for MVC framework.

These projects do not possess a fully-featured resource library, but rather provide you with the basic tools you need to develop simple apps while you’re still learning.

Check out these PHP boilerplate examples

CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter is a popular PHP boilerplate for developing applications, and a suitable kit of tools for every user familiar with PHP sites. It aims to make project delivery faster and more successful, as you’re not writing your codes from scratch, but using library resources arranged in a logical manner.

CodeIgniter also enhances your creativity, as the coding burden is off the picture. The recommended versions are PHP 5.6 (and newer ones) – the framework may still do for 5.4.8 users, but we don’t recommend it because some features may be missing. Another risk is facing serious performance and security issues.

Phalcon Framework

Phalcon Framework is an open-source web development tool offered as a PHP C extension that lowers the consumption of resources against maximal performance. It was written using Zephir/C with all platform independence considered, and it is thus available to use on Windows, MacOS, GNU/Linyx, and FreeBSD.

With this PHP boilerplate, you can choose between building your own binary package, or downloading a ready-to-use one from the site.

Cake PHP

If looking for a rapid PHP boilerplate that works with all popular design patterns (MVC, Data Mapping, Front Controller, and so on), look no further than Cake PHP. The structure of this framework makes it suitable for all users regardless of their PHP level, which is how developers create robust and good-looking apps even without experience.

Cake PHP is flexible and installed using Composer, and offers a premade skeleton you can use to launch your app development projects. For an already existing application, run the following:

$ composer require cakephp/cakephp:"~3.4"

Zend

Zend Framework collates several different PHP packages for professionals with over 141 million available installations. With it, you can develop PHP applications and services, or use any of its multiple language features and 100% object-centred codes.

Again, the dependency manager is Composer, but also PHPUnit that tests the different packages and Travis CI that allows unlimited integration. Zend Framework is also well-known for following PhP-FIG rules and standards, and implementing PSR-7 for HTTP message interfaces.

Developers are currently running and promoting the third version of their product (Zend Framework 3) which combines the best features of Zend Framework 2 and 1, both downloaded over 15 million times throughout the years. The founder and leading sponsor is Rogue Wave’s Zend Company, but the app has many other contributors and partners.

For instance, it is supported by Microsoft, Google, and StrikeIron which are regularly providing it with services and technologies that enhance users’ experience.

Yii

Yii is another top PHP boilerplate for developers looking for modern and high-performing PHP frameworks. It is designed to help building complex applications and delivering important projects in time. Its name is actually pronounced as Yee, and stands for ‘Yes It Is!, a consisted description for what Yii can and will do for novice developers – provide them with a fast, secure, and very professional environment to complete their projects.

The best thing about Yii is that it is open-source, and it promotes modern, clutter-free PHP5 design and rapid development absolutely for free. Thus, you can turn to it at any stage of your project’s development, and use it to ensure you’re creating an efficient and maintainable product.

Yii is also fully performance-optimized, and works well for projects of all types and sizes. Its main target group, however, and developers of enterprise applications which search for full, head-to-toe configuration and presentation-to-persistence control in line with that they were asked to do. The framework will make this easier for them with testing and debugging features, and its clean, compact documentation base.

Fat Free

All of Fat Free (or F3’s, as some like to call it) top notch functionality is condensed in a single 65KB file, including its rock-solid development foundation, mature code bases, code writing-free approach to app creation. The suite is extremely easy to use, but yet puts in place one of the best-in-breed cache engines that allow URL routing, code highlighting, and support for Multilanguage products and applications.

Hence, F3 will help you deliver projects effortlessly and in time, and won’t stand in your way while coming up with interesting solutions.

The Fat Free PHP boilerplate makes sense for both novice and professional PHP programmers, as there is no cumbersome installation or unnecessary, convoluted directory structures to worry about. In fact, it is so simple that you can start using it as we speak.

F3 will support both SQL and NoSQL databases, including the most popular ones such as MongoDB,MySQL, MSSSQL, DB2, Sybase, and PostgreSQL. Inside, you will also discover a number of great object-relational mappers in charge of data modelling and abstraction, which won’t be more difficult to use than the framework itself. No configuration works will be needed at all.

Fuel PHP

FuelPHP is a very flexible, intuitive, and community-driven framework for PHP 5.3+ developers, which collates a number of best-in-breed practices for those of you lacking inspiration. Its structure is unique and MVC-based (model-view-controller), developed with the aim to ensure full HMVC support for all users.

Recently, the framework was enriched with new ViewModels (presentation models) that help add interesting layers between Controller and View modes. Another handy feature is the router-based approach, as the user can route directly to deal closure with his input uri, and maintain control over the upcoming execution of the project.

MINI

Most developers would describe MINI as a very simple and intuitive skeleton PHP tool, which won’t overwhelm you with the complex, ultra-powerful engines typical for professional frameworks, but will still deliver enough functionality for the creation of simple sites.

In order to show a couple of pages, it will be enough to make few database calls, do some occasional tweaks with AJAX, and the page will run smoothly wherever you need it. At the same time, you won’t be expected to read tons of development documentation or to undergo complex installation procedures.

Laravel

Laravel has one of the most expressive and elegant syntaxes for web application development, and focuses on transforming this process into an engaging and enjoyable experience. The framework eases a variety of development tasks common to all web projects, among which:

A fast and simple routing engine
An advanced container of dependency injection
Cache and session storage facilitated with several back-ends
An intuitive and expressive ORM database
Agnostic database schema migrations.
Robust job processing in the background.
Broadcasting of events in real time.

Laravel is very powerful, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is very accessible and easy-to-use by development juniors. It combines elegance, simplicity, and innovation in a single, superb package, and provides you with the tools you need to build any type of application.

Symfony

Symfony unites several important PHP components alongside web application developing, the most popular of which are Community and Philosophy. Developers are offered a suite of reusable PHP elements used to develop all sorts of different applications. Many popular performers were designed using Symfony, among which projects such as Drupal, Magento, and BlaBlaCar.com.

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