Codeigniter vs Laravel

What is CodeIgniter?

CodeIgniter is a powerful PHP framework. It is built for developers who like a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications. CodeIgniter is one of the best options for creating dynamic websites using PHP.

It provides complete freedom for the users as they don’t need to depend on the MVC development pattern. Moreover, it allows third-party plugins which can be useful to implement complicated functionalities. It also offers awesome security and encryption procedures.

Features of CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter has acquired a lot of prominence among the developers and it has created a separate mark already. The main reason for getting this much fame is the best features offered by CodeIgniter.

• Error Logging
• Search engine friendly URLs
• It supports the class extensions and hooks
• File uploading class
• It validates the forms and data
• Simple and easy to use MVC framework for developers
• Library with image manipulation programs
• It offers the session management
• Built-in class support to send emails
• It offers the calendar class, unit testing class, and template engines
• Data is encrypted
• XSS filtering and higher security levels
• The framework is extremely light weighted
• Supports for data encryption and paging

Why Use CodeIgniter?

This is another important question which needs to be addressed immediately. Without knowing the reason for using CodeIgniter, one cannot prefer it. Here are some of the reasons why you need to use CodeIgniter.

• The entire framework is clear and well structured. Documentation on this framework is extremely easy.
• The routing method is simple
• Offers better stability and support
• The community support of CodeIgniter needs special mention. They provide great support and the knowledgeable
• community has solutions for almost all types of framework issues.
• It allows caching of the website for enhanced performance and easier loading times.

How CodeIgniter Works?

CodeIgniter is an MVC framework. MVC stands for Model View Controller. When a user requests a resource, the controller responds first. The controller understands the user request then request the necessary data if necessary.

For example, if you want to retrieve a customer with the id= 3, the controller will receive your request, then request the model to retrieve the record with the id of 3. The model returns the record to the controller. The controller then forwards the result to the view which formats it into a human-readable format. Then the results are returned to the user in the browser.

The following image shows how CodeIgniter works:

• It makes coding in PHP simple, quick and user-friendly.
• It’s an excellent framework for learning more about how PHP works as you code.
• It underpins the Model/View/Controller (MVC) approach to web development—a best practice philosophy all
• developers should adhere to.
• It’s built on a linear, easy-to-use folder structure.
• It’s open source and simple to configure and customize for your own needs.
• You can construct your own cleaner URI lines in CodeIgniter.

What is Laravel?

Laravel is an open-source widely used PHP framework. The platform was intended for the development of web application by using MVC architectural pattern. Laravel is released under the MIT license. Therefore its source code is hosted on GitHub. It is a reliable PHP framework as it follows expressive and accurate language rules.

Features Of Laravel

Laravel is power packed with some of the best features which made it very popular. These awesome features help it to stand out from the other frameworks present out there.

• Modular Packaging
• Offers Better IO
• Unmatched quality session control
• Easy integration with the third-party libraries
• Dependency manager fully composer based
• Built-in caching mechanism
• Easy to use blade templating engine
• Inbuilt authentication mechanism
• Query builder acts as potential ORM alternative

Why Use Laravel?

Well, this question would have popped up in so many developer’s minds already. It is important to know why you should use Laravel before making up your mind to select it.

Modular packaging with the composer-based dependency manager
The framework has the auto-loading feature which loads itself automatically and there is no need for human intervention with because of this feature.
Laravel offers the version control system that helps with the simplified management of migrations.
Supports the DBMS platforms such as Postgre SQL, SQL Server, and My SQL.
The framework can generate various new tools with the help of a LOC container.

• It has a great documentation feature
• Laravel allows you to enforce the constraints between various DBM objects in an advanced query builder mechanism.
• It supports the Artisan command along with the sample codes line interface.
• It also supports the Eloquent ORM, an advanced ActiveRecord Implementation for working on DB.
• There is a number of an enterprises in the market who have used Laravel for their web applications such as workshop software.

How Laravel Works?

Laravel is a free, open-source PHP framework. It is intended for the development of web application using MVC architectural pattern and based on Symfony.
Whenever I code application in Laravel, one question would pop-up to my mind was how it works?. Today, through this article we are gonna explore that.
If you have Laravel application then go to index.php file in public folder. This is where all the magic happens.

All requests into your application are directed through the public/index.php script.
The index.php file loads the Composer generated autoloader definition and then retrieves an instance of the Laravel application from the script. The first action taken by Laravel itself is to create an instance of the application.
Next, the incoming request is sent to either the HTTP kernel. The kernel serves as the central location that all requests flow through.
The HTTP kernel extends the Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Kernel class, which defines an array of bootstrappers that will be run before the request is executed. These bootstrappers configure error handling, configure logging, detect the application environment, and perform other tasks that need to be done before the request is actually handled.
The HTTP kernel also defines a list of HTTP middleware that all requests must pass through before being handled by the application. These middleware handle reading and writing the HTTP session, determine if the application is in maintenance mode, verifying the CSRF token, and more.
The method signature for the HTTP kernel’s handle method is quite simple: receive a Requestand return a Response. Think of the Kernel as being a big black box that represents your entire application. Feed it HTTP requests and it will return HTTP responses.
One of the most important kernel bootstrapping actions is loading the service providers for your application. All of the service providers for the application are configured in the config/app.php configuration file’s providers array. First, the register method will be called on all providers, then, once all providers have been registered, the boot method will be called.
Service providers are responsible for bootstrapping all of the framework’s various components, such as the database, queue, validation, and routing components. Since they bootstrap and configure every feature offered by the framework, service providers are the most important aspect of the entire Laravel bootstrap process.
Once the application has been bootstrapped and all service providers have been registered, the Request will be handed off to the router for dispatching. The router will dispatch the request to a route or controller, as well as run any route specific middleware.
Once the request is handled by the controller, the response is sent back. Before returning the response, terminate function on all middlewares are run and the process is completed.
This is how the Laravel’s request life cycle works.

Laravel vs CodeIgniter, which is better?

To conclude this, we can say both of these PHP frameworks have its relevance and benefits. However, It entirely depends on your project that which one you should prefer. Despite that, we can say that Laravel has a little edge compared to CodeIgniter because of its elegant and advanced features.