Laravel vs CakePHP – Which One is Best for Web App Development in 2020?
Tech-News 09-Jun-2020

Laravel vs CakePHP – Which One is Best for Web App Development in 2020?

Web development technologies have evolved to provide better and efficient production of web solutions. PHP frameworks are one of the key steps towards this end as these frameworks reduce your labor work and minimize the efforts required to perform tasks. These frameworks provide advanced support for programming that boost productivity.

Several PHP frameworks have come into being among which Laravel and CakePHP have emerged as two very popular frameworks. When it comes to PHP development service, choice between Laravel vs CakePHP becomes a deadlock for many. Choosing the right PHP development framework is essential for developing successful web applications. Here we will try to figure out which framework between Laravel vs CakePHP is more feasible and suitable for any web development project.

Laravel PHP Framework

Laravel is one the most powerful PHP frameworks that dramatically enhances your productivity. It follows the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture that allows separation of layout, business logic, and core functions that work cohesively to run a complete web application. It’s an open-source PHP framework and offers excellent features that enable PHP developers to create robust web applications. The following are a couple of features of Laravel PHP framework:

Eloquent ORM

PHP implements the active record pattern that enables the web app developers to write database queries using PHP classes instead of writing SQL code.

Template Engine

Laravel offers a templating engine called Blade that separates the business logic from the presentation layer. It allows Laravel web developers to create reusable pieces of HTML code along with generic layout files.

Model-View-Controller

As told earlier, Laravel works based on the MVC pattern. The MVC pattern of Laravel offers built-in functions, increased app performance, better security, and scalability.

Artisan

It is a command-line interface that comes included with Laravel which helps in automating a lot of repetitive and tedious programming tasks. It offers lots of helpful commands that assist a Laravel developer during the web application development process.

Libraries and Modular Features

Laravel offers pre-installed object-oriented and modular libraries that are not available with other PHP frameworks.

Unit Testing

Laravel can run multiple unit tests to ensure that the web application is not broken by any new change.

Ultimate Security

Laravel doesn’t save password in plain text, instead it utilizes hashed and salted password methodology and implements ‘Bcrypt Hashing Algorithm’ for generating encrypted password.

Please read my popular post on Most Popular PHP Code Snippets in 2020

CakePHP PHP Framework

CakePHP is another open-source and popular PHP framework that allows creating excellent web applications. This framework expedites web application development as well as eliminates the need for creating web applications from scratch. Apart from being flexible and convenient, there are a lot of things that make it a premier choice of PHP development framework. Here are some key features of the CakePHP framework.

CRUD Scaffolding

CRUD contraction for Create, Read, Update, and Delete, is quite helpful for developing web applications as it provides a preliminary view of the application even with a single line of code. It provides complete control over the outcome and production dynamics by letting create, modify, and update work.

Extend With Plug-ins

It allows code reuse as well as building code on existing facilities by extending with new features that come in the form of Extensions, Behaviors, Helpers, and Components.

Auto-Detect

Since the framework runs on auto-detect, thus no configuration is required as well as any kind of fixing or installation isn’t also required at any point.

In-built Testing

It offers varied in-built testing features that help in code maintenance and enhancing the code quality.

ORM

This feature makes it possible to connect different data categories to a single compatible type. To do this, developers are needed to create class objects and define relations between validation components, predefined resources, and other elements.

Benefits of Laravel and CakePHP frameworks

Whether you choose a Laravel development company or opt for CakePHP development service, there must be some benefits to avail with each choice. Here is a list of benefits that you will get with each of these frameworks.

Benefits of CakePHP Benefits of Laravel
Open-source Open-source
Follows MVC pattern Free, MVC pattern
Utilize software engineering strategies and software design models Devoted dependency manager, modular packaging
Active record, front controller, association data mapping Multiple options for accessing relational database

Laravel vs CakePHP – Which One to Choose for Web Development?

Undoubtedly, whatever PHP framework you would like to choose for your web application development project, it has to be the perfect fit for all your development needs. However, both Laravel and CakePHP have their pros and cons. The following comparison can be useful to find the winner.

Basis Laravel CakePHP
Performance It offers faster performance than CakePHP in case of bigger projects. Compared to Laravel it offers faster performance when dealing with tiny data sets.
Templating performance It offers templates with dynamic HTML features that can be utilized for creating user-friendly apps. It uses Underscore template formats that aren’t as functional as those provided by Laravel.
Testing performance It’s an important aspect of Laravel and it is quite good at testing even for bigger projects. In absence of data binding, it gives fast testing performance only in case of a single page or lesser apps.
Routing presentation With its joint binding procedure, routing is a bit more complex than CakePHP. It offers a simple and easy way towards routing as compared to Laravel.

The above are a few basis of comparisons between Laravel vs CakePHP frameworks. When it comes to choosing a single PHP framework, you should first completely understand the framework that you want to utilize for PHP development. Both of these frameworks are good at some aspects while one of them outpace another in other aspects. You need to make sure that whatever framework you choose, it fulfills all your development needs. You can also consult a PHP developer for choosing the right framework.