Whatever happened to the Zend Framework
I was reading this Reddit thread the other day where people were discussing the fate of frameworks other than Laravel and Symfony.
Things like the reasons behind the decline of these frameworks and why there are not many new PHP frameworks coming out these days were discussed in that thread.
The most striking aspect that most of the people agreed upon on that thread was that the Laravel framework simply offers more features out of the box than any other framework out there. The learning curve is also very low and it’s very easy to get started with. Oh, and how can we forget the entire ecosystem around Laravel which is simply amazing.
The community around Laravel is also very active on social media and other platforms which makes it very easy to get help from. The documentation is also top-notch. So, it has simply drowned out other frameworks.
One more thing why it looks like Laravel and Symfony are the only frameworks that are being used these days is because of the fact that they are the only frameworks that are being talked about on the internet (read “social media”). The Zend framework might have its own bubble of people who are using it but it’s not being talked about on the internet as much as Laravel and Symfony.
Similarly for other frameworks like CakePHP and Yii. These frameworks are still actively maintained and receive timely updates but again, they are not as shiny and flamboyant as Laravel and Symfony. So is the case with the Zend framework.
Fun fact: I also got to know that the Zend framework is now called Laminas. It’s a new project that’s been forked from the Zend framework. The reason for the fork is that the Zend framework is now a part of the Linux Foundation and the project is now called Laminas.
So, eventually, the crux of the matter is that these frameworks aren’t bad and all but it’s just they are simply overshadowed by their pouplar brothers like Laravel and Symfony. And that’s why they aren’t thriving as much as they should be.
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