Symfony and Zend : Juggling Between Frameworks

Though Zend and Symfony, both are frameworks, their work and abilities are totally different from each other. Zend provides huge scale of functions with improved interfaces to perform tricky jobs the web development specialists experience in day to day tasks.

The developer or the Zend framework specialist (in French zend framework spécialiste) has to select libraries on their own, as such there is no precise way to perform things in Zend. In Symfony, the structure of directory is necessary and it is formed in conjunction with modules, whereas in Zend the step of creating command-line modules is not needed.  With many disparities, there are few common points as well, like –

·         Both are best for developing web applications

·         Written in PHP

·         Follow the MVC (Model-View-Controller) archetype

·         They are deeply Object Oriented.

To move further more with the similarities and dissimilarities between Zend and Symfony, let’s consider the following points.

1.   As compared to Zend, Symfony is much comfortable for the new learners. It is preferred due to easily available guidance given by the various communities and authors. Zend lacks in this kind of assistance and existing information is designed for higher level users.

2.   The unit testing part in the framework is very important, in Symfony the unit testing support is integrated in it, while in Zend the PHP Unit is needed to run the unit tests.

3.   Symfony gives the means to isolate and centralize task ability in a project, turning it simple for many others to alter with un-noticeable traces.

4.   One drawback in Zend is that it does not support Model Implementation, and the reason why developers hesitate to use Zend Framework.

5.   While developing any business web application, which will have many pages, then it will be wise to use Symfony for faster and better results.

6.   If the Symfony framework specialist (in French Symfony framework spécialiste) needs to add any new feature in the framework, the specialist can just develop/create a plugin, which can be used further in other endeavors. Thus saving lot of time and money.

7.   The nature of decoupling gives an upper hand to Zend framework and helps it to easily get combined with other libraries.

Initially when Zend was introduced, it had many drawbacks, with due course of time, it developed its functionalities and the latest version of Zend Framework 2.1.5 is capable of doing many tasks that were not possible in earlier versions. At the same time, Symfony has been an all-time favorite of developers due to its easy available guidance. Both frameworks have their specific reach and abilities. It totally depends on the client and requirement of project, which framework to be used and which should be eliminated.