PHP Frameworks

PHP is finally getting the attention that i deserves, yes I have always believed that PHP is one of those neglected languages, neglected because they are used in abundance but there isn't enough programs or as we call them frameworks to work on PHP. But that was until the release of PHP 5. After the release of PHP, there is a range of Frameworks available.
Today we review and understand closely the various frameworks available for PHP. Some of the most popular frameworks for PHP are:

1. The Zend Framework.
2. The Prado Framework.
3. CakePHP Framework.
4. Symphony Framework.

These frameworks are ofcourse the most popular ones and there are more than 40 frameworks for PHP and it is very difficult to know which framework suits you the best and will be the most productive for your web development and enterprise goals.
Ofcourse all these frameworks are free and provide a host of services to satisfy almost all of the web development needs of a web designer or a website owner. Some of the most common features of all these PHP Framework are as follows:

• PHP 5: Thats obvious! All the frameworks support both PHP 5 version of the PHP.Only "The Prado Framework" support the PHP 4.x version of the PHP as well as the PHP 5 version of the PHP.
• Multiple DBs: All the above mentioned frameworks support multiple databases to be used without making any setup and configuration changes.
• Validation: All the four frameworks have an inbult validation and a filtering component which can be used.
• MVC: All the four frameworks have the MVC that is the Model View Controller setup.

So, these are the few components and controllers that are common in most of the PHP based frameworks and therefore one should look out for these components when downloading or using a PHP framework.
Now let us see a brief introduction about each of these PHP based frameworks and their salient features:

• Zend Framework:Zend Framework is a component based framework with components for almost all of the programming needs of a PHP programmer or PHP developer.

Some of the components in the Zend Framework are:

1. zend_acl
2. zend_auth
3. zend_cache
4. zend_config
5. zend_consolegetop and many more.

• Prado Framework: The Prado framework provides the following benefits for web application developers.

1. reusablility
2. Ease of use
3. Robustness
4. Performance
5. Team Integration

• CakePHP:

Some of the important features of CakePHP are as follows:

1. Model, View, Controller Architecture
2. View Helpers for AJAX, Javascript, HTML Forms and more
3. Built-in Validation
4. Application Scaffolding
5. Application and CRUD code generation via Bake
6. Access Control Lists
7. Data Sanitization
8. Security, Session, and Request Handling Components
9. Flexible View Caching

Like all other frameworks cakePHP is also component based framework.

• The Symphony Framework:

Some of the features of the symphony framework are as follows:

1. simple templating and helpers
2. cache management
3. smart URLs
4. scaffolding
5. multilingualism and I18N support
6. object model and MVC separation
7. Ajax support
8. enterprise ready

Thus these are the best options available for frameworks relating to PHP and one should review all these features of all these frameworks against his needs and choose the appropriate framework to work on!
Any suggestions and comments as always are welcome.