
Ask HN: Best PHP Framework? Drupal? Laravel? Codeiginiter? - chad_strategic
I have been assigned to build a Drupal 8 &quot;CMS&quot; system. After working for sometime with mild success there is a possibility to use another framework to build a more flexible and robust platform.
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chad_strategic
I made a mistake in asking this question. I guess there was a limit to the
question length, which for some reason I didn't see. regardless hear is my
full question with a little bit of detail.

I have been assigned to build a Drupal 8 "CMS" system. After working for
sometime with mild success there is a possibility to use another framework to
build a more flexible and robust platform.

The scope of the project is not defined which is part of the problem, but I
digress. (Basically, I working with people who don't have clue as to what they
want) I think it's time to move away from Drupal and build a custom CMS. As
the project will have a variety of non Drupal feature in the months to come.
Now what I need is some facts to back this up. Wappalyzer used to provide
charts of usage of certain frameworks.

I was wondering if there any site or articles out there I could use to prove
to a non-technical person, why we should move away from Drupal. Website usage,
security concerns, or hiring trends, etc.

Although I don't mind Wordpress, it has such a bad security reputation, the
sysadmin won't consider it.

I would like to use Laravel or Codeigniter but need some evidence as to back
it up.

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ccdev
CodeIgniter was great back in its time but has been supplanted by Laravel in
its organization of code. However what CI did well, in my opinion, is it lets
you spin up a MVP in a really quick turnaround time and effective enough for
small businesses.

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8draco8
Codeigniter is still great. I was always Symfony guy but last year I've ended
up in a company that had software build on CI and I really like it. Of course
it's totally different than Symfony but it's simple, allows for a lot of
customisation (we introduced Laravel Blade templating system). Of course you
should always thing about your project requirements and future development.
Think also about how easy it is to learn in case you will want to extend your
team.

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guinness74
Laravel is a terrific framework, and if you're building the project from
scratch it's my suggestion purely from a maintainability standpoint. It's
widely adopted and is decoupled nicely.

Drupal is a fine off the shelf CMS that is very extensible. I'd argue it has
framework like features, but with the goal to extend CMS capabilities.

I don't know enough about your use case to suggestion one over the other.

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gregjor
This isn't a technical problem a framework choice will solve. You need to have
a better idea of what you're building first. If there's a leadership vacuum,
step up.

If you're in the position of choosing between Drupal, Laravel, etc. you are
probably in the position to evaluate other solutions not based on PHP.

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smt88
Drupal is not at all similar to Laravel or Codeigniter. Drupal is a CMS, while
Laravel and CI are frameworks.

If you just need a CMS, there are tons of open-source CMS already built that
you can use commercially for free. Why spend time/money building a new one?

At this point, Laravel is so widespread in the PHP world, you might as well
just use it. They have a smaller version (Lumen, I think?) that is probably
faster to learn and much lighter-weight.

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chad_strategic
Agreed. The problem is that we have a non technical person pushing us to
Drupal. That person has left, so I'm trying to make a push into a customized
CMS via framework because there is no direction or mission statement, or user
stories for this project. That's the real problem... lacking leadership.

The good news is time and money is not an variable in the equation. (meaning
I'm not working in the real world...)

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hluska
Do I understand this correctly? You're pushing to go fully custom because the
requirements are lacking?

If I do understand that correctly, if I were you, I would spend some serious
time learning about why they picked Drupal in the first place. If you run into
brick walls, keep on knocking on doors until someone eventually lets you in.

I have been involved in many projects, but I have never seen one with very
loose requirements end well.

~~~
chad_strategic
see above, some of my questions was cut off. The answer to why they picked
Drupal is because... The sysadmin that somehow became a manager did some
programming in the early 2000 in Drupal. That is why they picked Drupal. That
sysadmin/manager has left, so I have leverage to make some changes.

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seanwilson
I would avoid Codeiginiter personally in terms of momentum and community. It's
fallen behind the more modern frameworks and when you find plugins for it on
GitHub they've regularly not been updated for at least a year. I've helped on
a Codeiginiter project for a while where we have to keep reinventing the wheel
because there's no decent solutions compared to e.g. Drupal or Laravel.

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drupallover
Drupal 8 is based on symphony and is pretty robust. Alot of what you would
build by hand is already built and easily configurable via the web interface.
I believe that modules can be symphony bundles or pretty close.

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tomascot
I would go with Symfony, has a great community, it's very robuts and lot of
developers behind it.

I'm probably wrong and it's just my opinion, but Laravel feels like it's a one
man show.

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ebcode
It really depends on your needs. I think you would get more helpful responses
if you included more information about the purpose of your project in the
question.

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iDemonix
I learnt PHP and avoided frameworks for years, but Laravel is a dream. Watch
the Laracasts and you'll be up to speed in a weekend

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savethefuture
Laravel was excellent to work in, much better than the other ones I had tried.

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zuzuleinen
Laravel or Symfony

