Laravel vs Symfony: Their Important Features, Similarities, and Differences

Quick Summary: Laravel and Symfony are the most popular and preferred PHP web frameworks. They are fantastic when it comes to the speed. They help businesses with scalable web app development that perfectly aligns to your business needs, modern tech environments, and organizational goals. But, how to choose the best among them? This blog on Laravel vs Symfony will offer a holistic overview of the important features, similarities, and differences between these frameworks. Keep reading for detailed insights!

Are you a software developer? Or a business owner? So, when beginning any new software development project, one of the critical decisions you must make is picking the ideal framework. And it has become challenging to imagine creating a robust web application from scratch nowadays without the framework.

Several major web development programming languages come with their default framework, including Django for Python or Ruby on Rails for Ruby. In the case of PHP, there's no such default but multiple popular options. But why only PHP? So, let me tell you, PHP frameworks are the most popular and frequently used in web development.

There are various PHP frameworks available in the market, but Laravel and Symfony are the top choices of every developer. Therefore, in the PHP development world, Laravel and Symfony are one of a kind and have been showstoppers for several years. Wondering why so? Optimizing code and streamlining processes are the two prominent areas that help web developers improve performance and efficiency. And they both are shining stars in these areas!

According to GitHub, Laravel and Symfony are among the most popular PHP frameworks, with 73.6k stars and 28.4k stars, respectively. And believe me, Symfony and Laravel frameworks are fantastic options for web development. They help organizations in efficient development that complies with all business needs while considering adaptability to future changes. Laravel and Symfony frameworks have similar capabilities to build multilingual, cross-platform content. Isn't it fantastic?

But again, the main question - which one to choose?

'Laravel vs Symfony' - It's a hot debate.

So, choosing among - Laravel or Symfony - PHP frameworks can be challenging. Both have advantages and disadvantages, which every developer needs to understand before opting for Laravel or Symfony PHP frameworks. That is why we took the opportunity to prepare a quick comparison guide between the two. Laravel and Symfony are among the best PHP frameworks, and we hope that after reading this guide, you can choose the best framework between Laravel vs Symfony. Here, we'll discuss the individual aspects of both these frameworks and learn the significant difference between Laravel and Symfony.

So, tighten your seat belt and enjoy this knowledgeable yet exciting ride with us.

Ready, set, go!

Experience Transformational Business Results with Seamless PHP Web Development

Join Hands with Us

What is Laravel?

Wondering what is Laravel? Laravel is a free, popular open-source PHP web framework under an MIT license. Laravel framework was created in a qualified MVC (model-view-controller) framework. It is developed using Symfony elements. Taylor Otwell created Laravel in June 2011 as an alternative to CodeIgniter.

Laravel development uses a modular packaging system and composer, a PHP language dependency manager committed to Laravel. Laravel workflow includes different methodologies for examining relational databases and abilities that help application deployment and database management.

What's the latest version of Laravel? It's Laravel 10, which was released on February 14, 2023. But why Laravel? It is a universally used PHP framework suitable for different enterprise solutions. Professional PHP developers worldwide adore and praise Laravel development for its rich features, adaptability, and consistent performance, among other reasons. Organizations can experience several advantages of Laravel (which we'll discuss in later sections).

Every Laravel development company needs to use the MVC structure, which makes it effortless to start building and eventually managing web applications. Moreover, it has valuable built-in functionalities, including authorization, authentication, sessions, routing, mail, etc.

Features of Laravel

Let's go through some of the best Laravel features helping in seamless Laravel web development.

• Quick Authentication – Laravel development enables fast, easy-peasy authentication, which is one of the crucial factors in developing web applications. Laravel workflow integrates a native authentication system where software developers only set up controllers and models to ensure their app's seamless functionality.

• Efficient Application Security - Applications security is essential for every Laravel web development project. Developers must follow different approaches to secure applications while being active on them. Moreover, Laravel uses the Bcrypt Hashing Algorithm to deploy integral, efficient security.

• Remarkable Unit Tests - When talking about unit testing, Laravel comes on top. This developer-friendly, popular PHP framework entitles end-users to perform multiple tests to spot loopholes quickly. Opting for Laravel development saves time and money, contributing to website performance evaluations.

• High-Grade Object Relational Mapping - The built-in ORM (Object Relational Mapping) in Laravel package development enables software developers to use a basic PHP syntax to query the database table. Because of this, developers don't have to write SQL code. Laravel workflow provides seamless integration between Laravel developers and database tables.

We're pretty sure now you'd understand – what is Laravel? And what are its essential features? Let's now move forward and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of Laravel development.

Knowing both sides of the story is essential, as it's only the fair deal. So, let's begin with the advantages of Laravel.

Boost Your Development Initiatives with the Power of Different PHP Frameworks

Choose PHP Development

Advantages of Laravel

Following are some of the significant advantages of Laravel:

1. Outstanding Documentation - Laravel is known as a developer-friendly framework due to its adequate documentation. Different versions of Laravel come with proper documentation, including excellent and in-depth explanations of methodologies, classes, and coding styles.

2. Easy Availability of Packages and Resources - When opting for Laravel package development, you can use Bower and NPM (Node Package Manager) packages by connecting the framework to Gulp and Elixir. It is significantly valuable for asset and resource revision. Moreover, this, in integration with the Composer, helps clear up dependencies. This makes it the most constant source of the package in the PHP era.

3. Uses the Latest PHP Versions - This is one of the best advantages of the Laravel framework. Wondering why? As it helps in utilizing all the latest PHP features. Most other backend frameworks are not compliant to do so. When using the latest version of Laravel, organizations can experience several new PHP functionalities, such as anonymous methods, namespace, shorter array syntax, overloading, and interfaces.

4. Email Service Integration - Web apps must communicate with their end-users and inform them of the latest offers, services, and bargains. Laravel framework consists of an API rather than the SwiftMailer library. It also comprises the operators necessary to enable PHP's "mail" functionality.

5. Active Community Support - Another massive advantage of Laravel is its vibrant community, which grows daily. The community includes developers, enthusiasts, and experts, contributing actively to its growth.

Pro Tip: To find the optimal techniques for rapid and robust web development, we recommend you understand the difference between core PHP and Laravel frameworks. So, go through our blog on core PHP vs Laravel frameworks.

Let's now see the other side of the story and discuss some disadvantages of Laravel development.

Disadvantages of Laravel

The following are some disadvantages of Laravel web development:

1. Incapable Composer – To be honest, Laravel is a challenging framework, so using it might get tricky sometimes for developers. Laravel's Composer is also relatively inefficient compared to PIP for Python, Ruby Gems for Ruby on Rails, and NPM for Node.js.

2. Updates Can Be Complex - Upgradation is not just a Laravel problem but also a PHP framework problem (whenever there's a version upgradation). As an outcome, the end-user must work out caution when modifying the version.

3. Version Inconsistency – Working as software developers at Radixweb, we noticed no major transition from Laravel version 4 to 5. And how did we come to know it? When we tried to update the code, the application had a break.

4. Growth Opportunity - Contrary to the Laravel framework, the development and growth of other frameworks are much quicker.

Despite all the cons developers experience while employing Laravel development, several huge conglomerates have used and still use the Laravel framework because of its advantages.

Use Cases of Laravel

Various organizations opted for Laravel development for their web applications. And why? Laravel includes expressive and beautiful syntax, making the web app development process easy and satisfying. Therefore, the following are some significant use cases for Laravel development:

• Pfizer
• Innowise Group
• Cheesecake Labs
• Crowdcube
• Ratio
• BBC
• About you
• TourRadar
• 9GAG
• Invoice Ninja

Let's now come to a bit of the technical part and learn about the basic steps of Laravel installation. As software developers, we've curated this basic Laravel installation tutorial for quick and easy installation.

Enjoy High-Quality, Fast-Paced Web Apps Built with Laravel Framework

Opt for Laravel Development

Laravel Installation

When discussing Laravel vs Symfony, you must remember that installing Laravel is the same and as easy-peasy as Symfony PHP framework. The one significant difference between Laravel and Symfony framework installation is that you acquire Laravel's installer using Composer:

Now, you can visit http://localhost:8000 and test your Laravel installation.

What is Laravel? We're sure we can quickly answer this question in-depth. We discussed various aspects of the Laravel workflow (of course! Some of the most important ones). So, now appreciating your time and thanking you, we would like to end the first part of our blog.

Well, congratulations! Half the work is done.

Let's now move to the second part of our blog and discuss distinct aspects of Symfony frameworks. Be with us; at the end, you'll thoroughly understand the difference between Laravel and Symfony. It will help you and your PHP developers to choose the winner from Laravel vs Symfony.

Why wait, then? Let's begin!

What is Symfony?

Now, what is Symfony framework?

Symfony is a PHP framework that offers reusable PHP components for efficient web development. It's an open-source framework and can be easily customized to satisfy the specific needs of developers by deploying a particular Symfony workflow and module. And this is how Symfony PHP framework works!

Symfony was created by Fabien Potencier in October 2005 under the MIT license. Due to the support and scalability the Symfony community provides, every end-user can experience an equal number of options. On another brighter note, if you can't find what you need, you always have an opportunity to integrate custom elements into your Symfony framework. You can also get the help of Symfony filesystem.

It can also be arranged using the MVC (Model View Controller) model to make the most of the Symfony PHP Framework. However, it is false for the MVC framework like Laravel. The fundamental thought behind the Symfony Framework is to wipe out the challenges in coding and save time throughout the PHP development process.

Symfony PHP framework is formed on the principle that end-users can design software per their needs and requirements. Developers' work is made more accessible by freely available Symfony bootstrap elements, high-end configurations, and framework components. Moreover, the Symfony framework is the cornerstone of your app when using PHP5. It consists of 50 autonomous parts that are available for Symfony applications.

Features of Symfony

Following are some of the best Symfony features helping in efficient Symfony development:

• Crucial Reliability – Contrary to other alternative frameworks, Symfony is known as the most reliable; this is why most web developers use it for developing high-performance apps.

• High-Quality Documentation – Incomplete documentation is significant problem developers face while working with some PHP frameworks. However, in the case of the Symfony framework, the documentation part is better than most other frameworks. Symfony workflow is developer-friendly and well-presented.

• Splendid Extensibility – When using Symfony PHP framework, developers can reuse the bundles, and it's not essential to change or modify the framework as you only need to configure the Bundle to satisfy the needs of your specific project.

• Simple Development – With the Symfony framework, developers do not need to stress minor operations and functionalities. It's ideal for development projects on all scales. And how? Since it consists of Bundle-based architecture.

Like the Laravel framework, Symfony PHP framework has two sides to the story. So, let's now go through the advantages and disadvantages of Symfony web app development.

Accomplish a Strong Business Digital Presence with Futuristic Web Development

Choose Web Development Services

Advantages of Symfony

Following are some of the significant advantages of opting for Symfony development for your next project:

1. Rapid App Development - One of the critical advantages of adopting the Symfony framework is its rapidness. It enables you to develop applications quickly and efficiently. Symfony's primary objective was to allow PHP developers to build programs rapidly, and it became possible because of its extensive usage of reusable components and module frameworks. We know multiple frameworks may be ideal for application development, but if you opt for Symfony PHP framework, believe us, you are already innovating.

2. Interoperability - Symfony workflows support consistency by endorsing the current PHPUnit and naming standards or classes. It enables the web developer to deploy specific software development components, including management, dependency injector, and translation management.

3. Cache Management - Symfony framework consists of a caching management approach since MySQL database operates every read query Symfony framework executes. In MySQL, all statements are reserved, making them easy to implement.

4. Reusable Components Utilization - The Symfony PHP framework is developed on the MVC framework. MVC (Model Controller View) paradigm is the architecture of a PHP application. The framework relies on the Reusable Components principle and is known to be the most modular. Since the software developers use reusable components, Symfony development moves as anticipated, pleasing business owners because of its minimal Time to Market.

5. Modular Structure - Symfony quickly adopts a modern design, allowing developers to choose and use only the necessary components for any project.

Bonus Tip: Since we're talking about the two crucial PHP frameworks, it's imperative to understand the concepts of PHP also. And what's the best way to learn about something rather than comparing itself with its cutthroat competition? There's no better way, of course! So, go through our blog on Node.js vs PHP to understand which one is best among both.

Returning to the topic, let's look at the other side of the story and discuss some disadvantages of Symfony web app development.

Disadvantages of Symfony

The following are some significant disadvantages of Symfony development:

1. Needs Consistency - If you choose the Symfony framework, you must invest more time in it, contrary to different PHP frameworks. Its learning curve is a bit high, requiring more effort and commitment.

2. Performance - There are certain times when the Symfony web app presents performance issues. And why? The main reason behind it is the low performance and the necessity to load real-time web apps quickly. This happens when there is high traffic on the application or website.

3. Parsing Issues- Parser and lever codes' accessibility is hard in the Symfony framework, making it more challenging for your dedicated development team to test these codes on time.

4. Hard to Master- Symfony PHP framework requires more time and determination to learn and master the framework due to the challenging concepts behind the framework.

Use cases of Symfony

Let's now go through some of the best use cases of Symfony web app development. Following are some of the best Symfony applications:

• Trivago
• Doc planner
• BlablaCar
• OpenSky
• Spotify
• phpMyAdmin
• Drupal
• Wikimedia
• Dailymotion
• NatGeo
• Doctrine
• Vogue France

While these are some of the most common yet popular Symfony applications, you can also use the Symfony framework to create almost any available app. For example, you can use it to develop Fintech applications, enterprise applications, learning management systems, SaaS (Software as a service) applications, and many more.

Same as Laravel, now we'll discuss a bit of technical and learn how to install Symfony framework.

Build Robust Websites and Web Apps with the Help of Expert PHP Developers

Hire PHP Experts

Symfony Installation

Installation is also an important aspect when differentiating between Laravel vs Symfony. Symfony framework installation differs a teeny-tiny much from Laravel installation. And let's see how?

Congratulations! Your Symfony framework installation is available on the URL http://localhost:8000.

Now comes the most crucial part of our article – Laravel vs Symfony. However, we'll first understand the similarities before directly diving into the difference between Laravel and Symfony.

The following sections will help you make more sound decisions on choosing between Laravel or Symfony framework.

Laravel vs Symfony: Understanding the Similarities

Since both Laravel and Symfony frameworks are based on PHP, it shouldn't be surprising that they also have a few common things. So, the following are some significant similarities between Laravel and Symfony.

• Whether Laravel or Symfony, both use PHP as their programming language
• Both are cross-platform frameworks
• Both support multi-language content and multiple users
• They offer the application's framework, text search support, and interface design patterns
• Both frameworks support MVC design and object-relational mapping
• CLI tools for standard functionalities and testing tools are readily available
• Includes the full stack and runs on several platforms for an efficient full-stack development
• Built-in properties for internationalization and extensible
• Good developer support from a vast community

Now, let's go through the most critical part of the blog and discuss the significant difference between Laravel and Symfony.

Laravel vs Symfony: The Major Difference

Laravel vs Symfony – differentiating both PHP frameworks considering some relevant and essential parameters.

Let's start!

• Learning Curve

So, yes, Symfony has a higher learning curve than Laravel. Though the Symfony documentation is quite valuable, you'll not find as many Symfony tutorials and community assistance as in the case of the Laravel framework. On the contrary, Laravel has a shallow learning curve. The developers, whether newbies or professionals, can learn A-Z about this framework from its documentation, videos, and tutorials.

• Scalability and Modularity

Reusable components in the Symfony framework provide higher modularity. It's easy to code structure highly benefits more challenging software development projects. This is why most expert PHP developers choose the Symfony framework over Laravel.

On the other hand, MVC-based apps exclusively use Laravel workflow. But Laravel can't help if you diverge from the MVC pattern. However, in the case of the Laravel framework, it's easy to start, build, and run your application, thanks to the pre-built Laravel dependencies. Still, you must take care while choosing the plugins and dependencies when making large-scale applications.

• Performance

Laravel succeeded the Symfony framework in its initial iterations. However, the tables turned, and the advantages of Laravel have been lost; credit goes to updated versions and advancements of Symfony PHP framework. The enhanced performance of Laravel that it boasted about might no longer exist. Oops!

So, the performance of both these frameworks can change like a coin flip as soon as there is an update in each PHP framework's iteration. However, developers at Radixweb are well-versed in both frameworks, be it Laravel or Symfony. They take care of every iteration release and opt for one that provides a better app performance.

• Security

Comparing Laravel vs Symfony, Symfony has a more robust security system. However, its implementation can be tricky. It provides and supports various authentication approaches and a granular permission system. On the other hand, the Laravel framework has a more accessible and simple method for security maintenance; the basic features are usually more than enough.

• Database Migration

Symfony frameworks automate database migrations. The fields of the model only need simple definitions. While it sometimes appears like a triumph moment, database migrations in the Laravel framework are done manually. However, they don't need any field definitions. Here, both frameworks, Laravel and Symfony, have their advantages.

• Support and Community

Although Symfony PHP framework has remarkable documentation, it is challenging to learn and understand. On the other hand, Laravel has a wide range of tutorials, training sessions, different courses, and online support resources due to its prominence among the development community. It is noticeable that it's more challenging to learn Symfony than Laravel.

That was all about the significant difference between Laravel and Symfony. We hope now you can choose the winner from – Laravel vs Symfony.

Hire Dedicated Software Developers to Craft Enterprise-Grade Custom Software Solutions

Let Experts Help!

Conclusion

Now, you may clearly understand what Laravel and Symfony are. So, it is crystal clear that both Laravel and Symfony are rich in features and functionalities. Both have their own sets of advantages and disadvantages. But which one to choose, Laravel vs Symfony, depends solely on your business requirements and which technology can help solve problems.

So, if you want to create a basic web app with minimal cost and in a shorter time, we suggest you use the Laravel framework. On the other hand, the Symfony framework is ideal for complex web applications or long-term software development projects that need peculiar methodologies.

It's a known fact that Laravel and Symphony are both trustworthy and popular PHP frameworks. As we've mentioned, the most important thing is to understand what type of project you want to build and launch, what features and functionalities it should include, and what your business goals are (you need to answer all these questions carefully). After reading this blog, we hope this complex decision between Laravel vs Symfony becomes more transparent.

Are you still feeling confused? There's nothing to stress about! Experts at Radixweb are always happy to help.

Why Radixweb, Though?Radixweb is a trusted and reputable software development company with 25 years of profound technical knowledge. Our pre-vetted experts can help you enhance your digital presence in the market and maximize your ROI (return on investment). So, our professionals will help you choose between Laravel vs Symfony; believe us, you'll make an apt decision.Also, according to us, there's no best or worst framework. It only depends on whether it is ideal for your development project.Contact us today to learn more about these frameworks.