Choosing the Best PHP Framework that Compliments your Solution

Selecting the most suitable PHP framework can be a task if you don't know what features to compare and prioritize. Different PHP frameworks should be compared on the basis of code repository statistics including total forks, watchers, stars, contributors and recent trends on Google search terms. This can directly be related to growing framework and forecast future of the framework.

Google search trends since 2004 clearly indicate Laravel is growing fast from last 4 years and maintaining on trend.

Following is list of frameworks with respective Source Code and website links:

Laravel

"Love beautiful code? We do too. The PHP Framework For Web Artisans" Statement stands correct on all levels.

Laravel is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. We believe development must be an enjoyable, creative experience to be truly fulfilling. Laravel attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, queueing, and caching.

Laravel is accessible, yet powerful, providing tools needed for large, robust applications. A superb inversion of control container, expressive migration system, and tightly integrated unit testing support give you the tools you need to build any application with which you are tasked.

Source Code: https://github.com/laravel/laravel
Website: https://laravel.com/

ZendFramework 2

Zend Framework 2 is an open source framework for developing web applications and services using PHP 5.3+. Zend Framework 2 uses 100% object-oriented code and utilises most of the new features of PHP 5.3, namely namespaces, late static binding, lambda functions and closures.

Source Code: https://github.com/zendframework/ZF2
Website: http://framework.zend.com/

Yii

Yii is a high-performance PHP framework best for developing Web 2.0 applications.
Yii comes with rich features: MVC, DAO/ActiveRecord, I18N/L10N, caching, authentication and role-based access control, scaffolding, testing, etc. It can reduce your development time significantly.

Source Code: https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2
Website: http://www.yiiframework.com/

CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter is an Application Development Framework - a toolkit - for people who build web sites using PHP. Its goal is to enable you to develop projects much faster than you could if you were writing code from scratch, by providing a rich set of libraries for commonly needed tasks, as well as a simple interface and logical structure to access these libraries. CodeIgniter lets you creatively focus on your project by minimizing the amount of code needed for a given task.

Source Code: https://github.com/bcit-ci/CodeIgniter
Website: https://www.codeigniter.com

CakePHP

CakePHP is a rapid development framework for PHP which uses commonly known design patterns like Associative Data Mapping, Front Controller, and MVC. Our primary goal is to provide a structured framework that enables PHP users at all levels to rapidly develop robust web applications, without any loss to flexibility.

Source Code: https://github.com/cakephp/cakephp
Website: http://cakephp.org

Symfony

Symfony is a PHP full-stack web framework. It is written with speed and flexibility in mind. It allows developers to build better and easy to maintain websites with PHP.
Symfony can be used to develop all kind of websites, from your personal blog to high traffic ones like Dailymotion or Yahoo! Answers.

Source Code: https://github.com/symfony/symfony
Website: https://symfony.com

Phalcon

A full-stack PHP framework delivered as a C-extension
Its innovative architecture makes Phalcon the fastest PHP framework ever built!

Source Code: https://github.com/phalcon/cphalcon
Website: https://phalconphp.com

Slim

Slim is a PHP micro-framework that helps you quickly write simple yet powerful web applications and APIs.

Source Code: https://github.com/slimphp/Slim
Website: http://www.slimframework.com

Kohana

Kohana is an elegant, open source, and object oriented HMVC framework built using PHP5, by a team of volunteers. It aims to be swift, secure, and small.

Source Code: https://github.com/kohana/kohana
Website: https://kohanaframework.org

Lumen

The stunningly fast micro-framework by Laravel.
Laravel Lumen is a stunningly fast PHP micro-framework for building web applications with expressive, elegant syntax. We believe development must be an enjoyable, creative experience to be truly fulfilling. Lumen attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as routing, database abstraction, queueing, and caching.

Source Code: https://github.com/laravel/lumen
Website: https://lumen.laravel.com