06 Frameworks Home

Framework 1

Laravel

Laravel, while one of the newer frameworks, is probably the most popular with over 1M sites using it. However, it does seem to be more geared toward design, which is definitely important, but I feel like that's not all the potential it has. Maybe their "web artisan" marketing just makes me think that though. Anyways, they try to keep their code as simple as possible so that anyone can pick it up. Finally, it does seem there are a lot more features like authentication and database migration.

Framework 2

Symfony

Symfony is another popular one with over 80k uses. It possibly does more than Laravel, but as a result it is harder to learn. However, it might have the largest framework community, so there would definitely be plenty of resources. It also appears more geared toward businesses. Finally, it's very customizable.

Framework 3

CakePHP

CakePHP, a less popular framework at over 40k uses, is still a viable option due to its unique features. There isn't any needed configuration, so it's a lot easier to use and learn. It also came out around the same time as Symfony, so there's more documentation. Also, there are some built-in features like security and simple testing.

Summary

Honestly, there are wildly different answers for the specific popularity numbers of all of these, so they might be inaccurate, at least to the extent of comparing the same topic (for example, downloads vs current usage). However, they would still rank in the same positions on a popularity scale. I would definitely use any of them depending on what I was trying to do, but I probably wouldn't go any less popular.