I don’t want this to start into a Framework war, but I simply want to know: what’s the difference between CodeIgniter and CakePHP? Where/when does CodeIgniter shine? When/where does CakePHP shine?
I’m not here to advertise CakePHP or whatever…. I’m simply looking for facts. I’ve been playing around with both, but, I’m like, “Umm… CodeIgniter has way more features, helpers, and overall ease of use. Wtf?”. I was trying to read the documentation in Cake… once again, I was like “Errr… huh?” They were explaining like as if I was a Cake developer. They explain everything horribly, it’s just… bad. Now, I’m just wondering, where’s the competition?
I don’t want this to start into a Framework war, but I simply want to know: what’s the difference between CodeIgniter and CakePHP? Where/when does CodeIgniter shine? When/where does CakePHP shine?
I’m not here to advertise CakePHP or whatever…. I’m simply looking for facts. I’ve been playing around with both, but, I’m like, “Umm… CodeIgniter has way more features, helpers, and overall ease of use. Wtf?”. I was trying to read the documentation in Cake… once again, I was like “Errr… huh?” They were explaining like as if I was a Cake developer. They explain everything horribly, it’s just… bad. Now, I’m just wondering, where’s the competition?
Thanks in advance!
When CakePHP 1.0 was released, I went and checked out their docs and thought the same thing.
What CI is today and coupled with the fact that it seems to be a one man team is very impressive.
For me personally, I had problems getting Cake to install properly, if I remember correctly it had to do something with these pear libraries (which are bloated), and I just gave up - altough it could be just me that was the problem.
Anyway, as things are running so smoothly now, I’m not even peeking at other frameworks. CI is doing such a good job - I pity the fools that aren’t using it.
Cake’s database layer is a bit more powerful in some ways then CI’s. It also has an interesting approach to form validation that is more tied to its models. CI has more libraries and has better out of the box performance. I think CI is simpler to use, particularly for those who are less experience with PHP, but then I’m biassed since I wrote most of it.
The biggest difference for me is the PEAR thing. I took so long to get PEAR up and running (and then not even correctly) that it just wasn’t worth it in the end. With CI I could basically start coding on the first day, which is a far better thing.
I think CI is simpler to use, particularly for those who are less experience with PHP, but then I’m biassed since I wrote most of it.
You bet! I don’t have much experience in PHP, but I feel very comfortable using Code Igniter. I was really confused by CakePHP, but CI is so easy to understand that I’m even coding my own Firebird driver. I never even tried to modify or create some extension to programs I use, but with CI it seemed a pretty easy thing to do.
When looking at PHP frameworks I tried Cake first. It seemed like a good product but it doesn’t seem to favour simplicity. I also found it a bit resticting and the homepage was almost useless in helping you to learn things.
In comparison Code Igniter is simple, well thought out and has very very clear and easy follow documentation.
I also tried Cake for a couple of days, printing out the manual and reading a lot about it.
But, the main difference is the very very good docu of CI and the screencasts are very helpful.
CodeIgniter is way easier than Cake. I’ve been programming in PHP for many years and CI is currently the most productive environment of all that I tried.
Mojavi 2 - Great MVC idea. Ahead of the pack in it’s days. But incomplete in many ways and the Mojavi project has really fizzled out. Symfony - Configuration overload. Too much commandline stuff. Framework too rich - too many features depending on other projects. Steep learning curve. Cake - Too complicated. Need to learn commandline tools, etc. to run generators. Steep learning curve. CI - Great out of box experience. Just enough features in the framework. Almost zero conf. Lean and easy API. Extendable.
The thing that really got me on the CI track was the screencast. With CI you really can get somthing up and running within 5 minutes, using what you already know: PHP.
The only other framework that might actually turn into something similar to CI is the Zend Framework. But’s it far from ready. I’ll have many projects done in CI before I could consider ZF.
Cake is a darn nice framework. What CakePHP had when I started Bamboo was a “running start”. The project got out of the gates before CI, and has more examples and a larger contributer/userbase. This is probably still the case. One of the things that makes CI great is the community. Cake also has a great community who are active, helpful and participate. All the things that also make CI a great place. Let’s face it - Rick is a <censored> genius! But that’s only half the equation, the other is community and involvment.
Both CI and Cake are excellent OSS projects with active communities, so I judge them on simplicity, performance and technical merit - and that’s why
$I->love{CodeIgniter};
edit: They also have a brilliantly cool name! They get cheesy (and therefore cool) slogans like “have your cake and eat it too” or “once you eat a cake you’ll never go back”... etc.
After I learned the Cake programming ways, and how Cake does it’s things differently, I’m more of a Cake fan, now. The reason why? The simplicity of the actual programming. I learned that I don’t need extra ‘helpers’ to help me create an application that I’m going to create. All I need is an amazing framework, such as Cake, that can do most of the things for me: such as table associations, super-easy model/view/controller methods, and the like.
All in all, both are great frameworks, but after I read the Manual of Cake, and met the community, it was a simple choice for me.
About two months ago I was looking for some framework (i had never used any framework before). I read manual of Prado (some nice ideas here like internatiolization or validation system) and manual of Cake (I really liked it). But when I found codeigniter.com, I watched videos (unfortunately only two :( ), read super simple manual, and then it was simple choice for me too I think CodeIgniter has incredible great simplicity/abilities relation (respect for Rick).
Hi. guys!
Cake is better than CI due to several reasons.
First of all, Cake has SVN repository (i can download latest sources).
Also, CakePHP has great, so I can easily add bug reports or feature requests
CakePHP divides helpers into Components (parts of code, that used in controllers) and Helpers (functions to be used in views). Also, every component / helper is an object.
It is much more flexible, than simple functions in CI.
And so on..
Hi. guys!
Cake is better than CI due to several reasons.
First of all, Cake has SVN repository (i can download latest sources).
Also, CakePHP has great, so I can easily add bug reports or feature requests
CakePHP divides helpers into Components (parts of code, that used in controllers) and Helpers (functions to be used in views). Also, every component / helper is an object.
It is much more flexible, than simple functions in CI.
And so on..
Sure… if you can get past the initial learning curve before you give up and start looking at porn instead. There are lots of great frameworks out there, but I picked CI because I was able to start building things with it almost immediately. Different tools for different jobs, none are really better than the other unless you are talking about a specific application.
