Laravel vs Codeigniter: Which is Better?

Laravel vs Codeigniter: Which is Better? – PHP programming language has many frameworks. Most of the available frameworks are open source and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. There are so many, that you can get confused.

Among the PHP frameworks scattered on the internet, there are two frameworks that are quite popular lately, namely Laravel and CodeIgniter. These two frameworks are often compared because of their advantages or disadvantages. The system development process will be easier and security is guaranteed.

So that you are not too confused anymore. In this article, we will discuss the framework, briefly Laravel and CodeIgniter, as well as the advantages and differences between the two frameworks.

What is a Framework?

Before discussing Laravel and CodeIgniter, you should first know what a Framework is. Laravel and CodeIgniter are frameworks that are compatible with the PHP programming language. What is that framework?

The framework is a set of functions that make it easier for programmers or web application developers. Functions that are in the framework such as plugins and concepts. The concept in question aims to build a system so that it can be developed in a neat and structured manner.

Apart from providing functionality, the framework also provides libraries and other tools that you need when developing web applications.

If you’re developing a web application using a framework, you don’t need to start from scratch, so development takes significantly less time than using PHP Native.

What is Laravel?

Laravel is a framework that is quite popular in Indonesia. This framework was launched in 2011 and until now many developers use it to develop powerful websites.

As with other frameworks, Laravel’s development process aims to simplify web application development. But not only that, but Laravel also makes the web application development process more elegant, fun, and expressive.

Laravel is known as a dynamic framework – something that is constantly changing and developing actively. This framework is also famous for its complete and always updated documentation.

MVC or Model, View, Controller is the foundation of Laravel which is equipped with a command-line tool called “Artisan” that can be used for packaging bundles and installing bundles via the command prompt.

Laravel Features & Pros?

No framework is perfect. Each framework has its own advantages and disadvantages. But by using a more modern framework, you can do a lot of things.

Following are the features and advantages of the Laravel framework:

1. Modularity

Laravel provides a wide variety of modules and libraries. These two features can help you improve and improve your web application. All modules available in Laravel are integrated with the Composer dependency manager which can help simplify the update process.

2. Routing

Routing helps web application developers by providing a flexible approach to defining routes within web applications. Routing helps to extend the web application properly and also improves the performance of the web application.

3. Testability

Laravel provides a variety of tools and helper programs that can assist Software Testers with various case checks. This feature helps to maintain the source code according to user requirements.

4. Query Builder and ORM

Laravel provides a fairly powerful query builder. This feature helps you to query the database using a wide range of simple methods. Laravel provides an Object Relational Mapper (ORM) and an ActiveRecord implementation called Eloquent.

5. Configuration Management Features

Laravel uses different environments and configurations. So a website designed using Laravel runs with constant configuration changes. Laravel provides a consistent and powerful approach to managing configurations in a fairly efficient way.

6. Template Engine

Laravel uses the Blade template engine, which is a template language used to design layout hierarchies and blocks with different types of blocks including predefined dynamic content.

7. Laravel’s Schema Builder

Maintains various types of database and schema definitions in PHP code. The framework also supports monitoring all changes by complying with the database migration process.

8. Authentication

The authentication process has become a common feature on all internet-connected websites. Laravel provides authentication development which includes register features, reset password submission, and ‘forgot password’.

What is CodeIgniter?

Similar to Laravel, CodeIgniter is an open-source framework available to PHP Developers. The level of popularity of CodeIgniter is almost the same as Laravel.

CodeIgniter also speeds up the website development process. This framework is based on PHP based on an array of libraries and more packages. This library can be called repeatedly during the web application development process.

CodeIgniter also uses the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. Apart from that, this framework also adds layer logic to your web application. This layer is useful when parallelizing certain processes in the web application development process and contributing to a cleaner application design. This is what makes web applications developed with CodeIgniter look so responsive to business changes.

CodeIgniter Features & Pros?

As a framework that is as popular as Laravel, CodeIgniter has several excellent features. These features are also the advantages of CodeIgniter.

Following are some of the features of CodeIgniter taken from its documentation:

1. Extremely Light Weight

CodeIgniter is famous for being light. The main system only needs a few small libraries. Whereas in some other frameworks generally require larger resources . Additional libraries are loaded dynamically during the request process, depending on the requirements of the given process, this makes the main system of CodeIgniter very simple and quite fast.

2. Security and XSS Filtering

Cross Site Scripting (XSS) is a type of code injection attack. XSS is carried out by attackers by entering HTML code or other client script code into a site. Therefore, CodeIgniter provides filtering to overcome XSS for the security of your web application.

3. Template Engine Class

While CodeIgniter has a simple parser template that you can optionally use, it doesn’t force you to use it. Template engines simply can’t match the performance of PHP Native, and the usual syntax for using template engines is usually easier to learn than learning the basics of PHP.

4. Image Library

There is a library that can be used for resizing, cropping, rotating, and so on. In addition, CodeIgniter also supports the use of GD, NetPBM, and Image Magick.

Provides Email Class

CodeIgniter supports several email features such as Attachments, HTML/Text emails, multiple protocols such as SMTP, POP, and many others.

5. Flexible URI Routing

URI Routing is a method used to map a URL to a specific resource by providing another name for the resource. There are several uses for URI Routing in web application development; assigns routing and resource names and assigns new addresses to aliased URLs so that they are easier to read for others.

In addition to the above features, CodeIgniter also has several other features such as Form and Data Validation, Session Management, FTP Class, Data Encryption, Benchmarking, Full Page Caching, XML-RPC Library, Search-engine Friendly URLs, and so on.

Laravel vs CodeIgniter Difference: Which is Better?

Laravel and CodeIgniter have quite significant differences. Below is a comparison table between Laravel and CodeIgniter.

Key Differences between Laravel and CodeIgniter

So far both Laravel and CodeIgniter are two equally popular and reliable frameworks. In order to know more about the differences between Laravel and CodeIgniter, in this section, we will discuss the main differences between Laravel and CodeIgniter.

ORM Support

CodeIgniter does not support ORM whereas Laravel allows developers to take advantage of Eloquent object-relational mapping ORM. You can use the ORM system to work with various types of databases to make it more efficient to use Active Record Implementation.

Eloquent Object Relational Mapping further allows developers to interact with the database directly through a specific individual database table model. Developers can even use the model to perform concurrent tasks such as adding new records and running database queries simultaneously.

Database Processing

Compared to Laravel, CodeIgniter is superior in database processing. While both frameworks support MySQL, Microsoft Bi, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB. Not only that, CodeIgniter supports other databases, such as ORACLE, Microsoft SQL Server oriented, IBM DB2, and JDBC.

Management of Modules

CodeIgniter requires developers to manage modules by using additional Modular Extensions. How about Laravel? Laravel is designed with built-in modularity support. Built-in modularity allows developers to separate large projects into smaller modules via a bundle. You can use the module in several other projects.

CodeIgniter Database Migration

does not provide specific features to simplify database schema migration. To perform the database migration process requires quite a lot of effort.

Meanwhile, Laravel makes this process easier with the database agnostic migration feature they provide. This feature allows developers to easily modify and share the database schema of the application without having to write lines of code that are quite complex to carry out this process.

In the further development process, you can easily develop the database schema of your application by combining database-agnostic migration with the schema builder available in Laravel.

Built-in Template Engine

CodeIgniter does not provide a built-in template engine. Developers have to integrate the framework with tough template engines like Smarty to perform some tasks and improve the performance of the web application.

Unlike CodeIgniter, Laravel provides a built-in Blade engine template. This template engine allows PHP Developers to optimize the performance of web applications by zooming in and manipulating them from various angles.

REST APIs

CodeIgniter does not provide features for developing REST APIs. Developers have to manually write lines of code to create custom REST APIs.

In the case of Laravel, RESTful Controllers are available to developers who wish to enable them to build REST APIs without additional time and effort. You can easily set the $restful property to ‘true’ in a RESTful Controller to create REST APIs without having to create an extra line of code.

Examples of Laravel and CodeIgniter Websites

Comparing Laravel with CodeIgniter is incomplete if you don’t see the results firsthand. Even though the results are the same, you can directly visit each website to compare the performance and how the website works.

Websites Using Laravel

The following is an example of a website that uses the Laravel framework:

1. MyRank

MyRank is a website for online learning of people in India. This website shows how versatile Laravel can be.

2. Laravel Trick

Laravel Trick is built using Laravel. A simple design with several well-placed panel options.

3. Asgard CMS

Asgard is a CMS Platform built using Laravel. You can visit the website directly to enjoy the experience of using a Laravel website or even try to build it yourself using a CMS.

4. World Walking

World Walking is a website that aims to get people excited about walking. Who doesn’t like walking?

This website offers a lot of features in a smartphone application, so it’s promising to try it right away to improve your walking skills. In addition, the appearance of the website is quite attractive and has several unique features.

5. LaravelIO

Laravel has several online communities and forums. LaravelIO is a website that is used by the Laravel user community to exchange information.

The sign-up module on this website is already integrated with GitHub, something that is quite important for you to know when you want to build your own application.

Websites Using CodeIgniter

The Laravel website is ready, next, we will show some websites built using the CodeIgniter framework.

1. Casio Computer

Casio is one company that uses CodeIgniter as a framework to build its website. Casio is a multinational company that provides various kinds of electronic equipment such as watches, digital cameras, and many others.

2. The Mail & Guardian

The Mail & Guardian is a weekly news website. This website is published weekly because it does not have the cost to publish news every day. The Mail & Guardian was built by M&G Media in South Africa.

3. Buffer

Buffer is a social media management platform. This platform helps you to increase traffic and increase interaction with visitors or customers. Buffer provides some of the largest teams in various places aiming to get what their customers need.

4. Nissan

Nissan uses a website – which was developed using CodeIgniter – to promote their website.

5. McClatchy

McClatchy is a California-based publisher change. The company already operates with more than 29 media outlets in more than 14 states.

Closing

As already discussed, when compared to Laravel vs CodeIgniter, each has its advantages. It’s just that Laravel has more features than CodeIgniter. You can use these features to build your own web application. However, if the application you want to develop has a lot of interaction with the database, it would be better to use CodeIgniter.