#1 most frequent
United States of America
28.4%52 installations of 183
Laminas Project
15 Reviews and Ratings
What is Laminas Project?
Zend Framework was a PHP framework developed by Zend Technologies and acquired by Rogue Wave Software. The Laminas Project is the community managed Open Source Continuation of Zend Framework managed by the Linux Foundation. Transition initiated after Rogue Wave was acquired by Perforce in 2019.
Categories & Use Cases
Who Buys & Uses Laminas Project
#2 most frequent
Germany
21.3%39 installations of 183
#3 most frequent
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
7.1%13 installations of 183
Open source enterprise framework with the best support available
Pros
- Long term support not matched by any other framework.
- Well designed architecture, very natural for any PHP developer.
- "Enterprise" spirit, it's OOP patterns will be very familiar to any Java, C# or C++ developer.
- Good support, services and ecosystem offered by the Zend company
Cons
- For some reason it has never been too popular.
- Quick prototyping may not be super fast and easy like with other RAD frameworks available.
- It doesn't exist anymore! It has transitioned into a community-driven project called Laminas.
Return on Investment
- It has had zero cost of maintenance over the last 10 years and counting.
- No version upgrade has introduced a single issue in 10 years.
- Systems didn't have to be re-implemented and they aren't in debt either.
Alternatives Considered
Laravel PHP Framework, CakePHP and Symfony
Other Software Used
CakePHP, Lua, NGINX, AWS OpsWorks
Zero in on Zend Framework!
Pros
- Excellent interface for databases. I trust that no bad data will accidentally be injected causing the databases to become corrupt or drop.
- The routing is really great. We have a lot of custom routing and it makes it very easy to add or adjust routes and ensure they're getting where they need to go.
- Zend provides so much flexibility in the controllers for dealing with the view. It's so easy to customize the view to render just how you want it. Especially when dealing with a request that may or may not be ajax.
Cons
- My most recent gripe with Zend was when it turned out that the order the routes are loaded differ from server to server. I know this is a PHP issue but it would be great if Zend stepped into ensure the routes were loaded and parsed in the same order no matter where it's running.
- I wish template variables were automatically included in nested templates. It's annoying having to pass the variables once in the controller and then again within the template when loading in a new piece.
- The database functionality could use a bit of expansion. We had to write our own workaround when needing to specify a specific index. There's no built in function to handle this and we didn't want to have to resort to hand writing queries that require a specific index that the DB might not default to.
Return on Investment
- Zend is so flexible that we haven't even felt the need to upgrade to Zend Framework 2. There's nothing we need that it can't do.
- With our installation it's so easy for me to create new modules, and have model, view, controller, route, up and running in minutes. It is so straight forward and logical it's so simple to work with once you get the hang of it.
Other Software Used
Jenkins, MongoDB, MySQL
Usability
Zend Framework 2.x Review
Pros
- Zend Framework 2 provides a lot of best-practice tools, design patterns, and libraries for large-scale software projects.
- Zend Framework 2 uses an event-based model, a dependency injection model, and proper use of PHP5+ namespaces.
- Zend Framework 2 is used by a lot of large, leading software enterprises.
Cons
- Zend Framework 2 is overly complex for small projects.
- Zend Framework 2 documentation sometimes overlooks small details, which means you will need to delve into the code directly.
- Zend Framework 2 bug fixes on GitHub usually take quite a long time to get patched.
Return on Investment
- Zend Framework 2 has made training easier, as we can point junior engineers to the official documentation.
Other Software Used
Laravel PHP Framework, Symfony, MariaDB
This is the literal core of PHP
Pros
- The Zend Framework excels at productivity. It's lightweight, loosely-coupled enough to provide 90% of the functionality that everyone needs out of the door, but also customizeable enough to meet the remaining 10% should your business need it.
- Because the Zend Framework is functionality focused (also supported by the actual PHP developers) - it is light enough to hit the ground running with. Having no configuration files to get rolling is also a huge plus.
- The documentation of the Zend Framework is reliable, updated & succint. I have not encountered an issue that I could not easily troubleshoot from looking at the documentation.
Cons
- Zend PHP Engine could improve by creating a more intuitive workflow for beginners. Though it is not super hard to grasp - most developers have a learning curve for understanding & fully utilizing the framework.
- Zend PHP Engine could also improve by fixing their stability issues. Every now and then the MYSQL service calls will drop, stop being monitored or die alltogether. Any PHP developer worth his salt would point to the fact that PHP SQL queries also have this issue inherent in them - but I hope that just as much as they improved the MYSQLi queries - that they could eventually solve the issue with the stability.
- Zend PHP Engine could also improve by having the initial out of the box installation be more intuitive. The process of installing and configuring the framework can be a bit complex at times - and I have had to walk through it with even the most senior developers at my company.
Return on Investment
- Overall, Zend PHP Engine has had a positive return on our business objective of creating a medium sized web-application, debugging the application to assess problems before they occur, and to create dynamic API calls via our backend custom software.
Zend PHP framework, a great tool for PHP based projects
Pros
- The performance is superior compared to other frameworks.
- It's supported by the contributions of the core classes of PHP.
- Extensive updated documentation.
Cons
- The code isn't that easy to understand.
- The learning curve compared to other frameworks is bigger.
Return on Investment
- The good thing of using Zend is the fact that it's supported by the team in charge of PHP itself so they will always be aligned with the road path of php.
- Something bad is the learning curve. As a developer you will invest more time with Zend than with other frameworks.
Alternatives Considered
CodeIgniter, Laravel PHP Framework, Symfony and Yii Framework
Other Software Used
Symfony, Laravel PHP Framework, CodeIgniter