Which framework did you like the best.
Which framework did you like the best.
Nobody can fairly vote unless they have tried all of those frameworks. That's pretty much everyone.
Obviously not, but just for fun. 
Besides Yii, I have only tried CodeIgniter and CakePHP.
I currently rank Yii and CodeIgniter very very close, with only a small edge for Yii. I wrote a review on this:
I only tried cakephp. I like yii way better than cakephp though. The only thing I liked about cakephp over yii is some of the "automagic" it had (but it usually overdid it). For instance, when including a css file or something it would check if the argumented URL was absolute or not, and if it wasn't, it would assume it was in the /css directory and would build the url accordingly… no dealing with Yii::app()->request->baseUrl. Same thing for JS files. More of a "convention over configuration" thing. I wonder what qiang thinks of this actually.
Jonah, maybe you can elaborate on this css/js inclusion feature in a separate post? Yes, I'm certainly interested to know more about this, should it can simplify our development work.
For my own, I have gone thru a bunch of different frameworks the last maybe half year or more to find one that I would be comfortable with. Started out with CakePHP, but a to strict MVC. KohanaPHP was neat but there were to many changes made to often, and the codebase is not as wide as Yii for example. Going to ZF I didn't have the time for the steep learning curve, even if I will have to learn it one day. PRADO was really cool but a little bit to big and heavy. After tha tstarted to build on my own, until I stumbled over Yii.
Which seems to be the perfect for me so far. 
Quote
I've tried Cake, zend and prado and spent many hours reading docs and experimenting them … I've also tried a bit code igniter long time ago… didn't tried kohana cause I didn't liked it at first impression and so the documentation website…
Before choosing Yii I felt comfortable with Zend Framework but in the end it was too much bloated and the Dojo support was messy and poorly documented…
bye,
Giovanni.
p.s. / o.t.
vote for Yii here: http://www.phpframeworks.com
the title shoold be changed as which framework is the most widely used
Used some of Zend Framework classes and tried to use it for MVC. Tried CakePHP (1.1) and Kohana PHP for about 1-2 months each. Dug into all Code Igniter internals.
Cake 1.1 is too magical.
Kohana is poorly documented and constantly evolving.
ZF classes are great. Used them with CI and now using them in Yii. But MVC… well… too flexible for me.
CodeIgniter is really good for simple and fast projects. I have not noticed bad things until started writing more complex things and learning how CI is written. Another sad thing is that it is still supporting PHP4 and is not going forward for some months.
Yii is my choice for now. Really flexible, well documented. One thing I’m worrying about is maintaining backward compatibility with PHP < 5.3 in v.1.1. Personally I don’t like it very much.
I’ve worked with Ruby on Rails and CakePHP
Ruby on Rails is an excellent framework for many applications. But sometimes you need something that is easily deployable and then PHP is the best choice.
Yii is way better than CakePHP, mainly because CakePHP’s ORM sucks. I like working with objects instead of singleton model class instances that have to be loaded up with a data array.
I’m actually currently writing my MSc Thesis about a comparison of RoR, Yii and CakePHP
Why SimphonyPHP not in the list?
My vote for Cake, but Simfony better!
Zend Is slower constructor for build frameworks or build sites directly, but no a framework.
A year and half ago when I changed work place… I decided to go for a framework… until then I was using some kind of personal framework, with structural code (no objects)… and no javascript at all…
first I had to choose a javascript framework… after a month of testing and researching I decided for jQuery (at that time jquery was at his beginning not so widely known. and popular like it is today)
After that I decided to go for a framework and to change my coding practice so I began to learn the PHP objects and at the same time I was looking for a suitable PHP framework… After a very long search (two month actively searching, reading, testing)… I decided for Yii… for more reasons… it supported jQuery… it was "light"… the source code was easy to read and understand… and I saw a potential for this framework so I just followed my intuition… and begun working with it…
so in reality I can only say that Yii is the only framework that I have used… but as they say… I never looked back 
TIP: the above poll should have one more option ‘none’
Define ‘framework’, please.
Kohana ,Code Igniter and Zend are more like toolboxes than a coherent framework.
They are designed that way.
You can compare Yii with CakePHP and Symphony.
I don’t know Prado, but I guess it falls in the same category: MVC frameworks.
My vote is on CakePHP. 
And I like it a lot.
But when I coded myself into a corner ( blame me, not CakePHP!
) and thus needed to do a full rewrite of my application, I grabbed the opportunity to choose another framework.
Choosing Yii was a no-brainer
For my needs the most important feature in a framework is the ease to deal with databases, so i never found anything close to Yii/ActiveRecord features