Symfony and Laravel – Which PHP Framework Should you Choose For Your Project?

4 min readAug 6, 2023

Laravel and Symphony have maintained the status quo as being the most popular PHP frameworks used in web development. Picking the right framework remains a major decision when starting a new project.

While Google trends report Symfony and Laravel to be the most popular PHP frameworks with over 9k and 74k star ratings, both of them have their pros and cons based on the features presented.

Interest in Symfony vs Laravel (Google trends)

This article highlights the similarities, differences, pros, and cons of Symfony and Laravel to give an insight into the best PHP framework for your project.

Overview of Symfony and Laravel

While Symfony serves as a web development PHP framework, Laravel is an open-source framework created as an alternative to Codeigniter.

A closer look at Symfony

As a web development framework, Symfony has a larger community and has been used to build a large number of open-source projects. Similar to Laravel, Symfony can be used on several computing platforms, while relying on the Model-View-Control (MVC) design patterns.

MVC Design Pattern (Source: GeekforGeek)

Web developers often use Symfony to build complex and well-grounded web applications as it offers some unique tools and features.

Reasons why developers consider Symfony as an option include:

Easy customization: Every developer has a style and Symfony has several features and functionalities to suit a developer's style. Its brick-by-brick and full-stack modes allow developers to build customized frameworks.
MVC pattern: These patterns help developers to build well-organized web apps such that business logic can be divided, presented, and executed orderly.
Security: Symfony has complex security components that enable developers to build apps with well-enhanced protection.
Documentation: Symfony's elaborate documentation makes it easy to understand.

Others are bundle and unit testing.

Overview of Laravel

Laravel is an open-source framework that reuses components of different frameworks such as Codeigniter, Yii, and Ruby on Rails. However, the Laravel framework is much easier for developers with a good knowledge of Core PHP and Advanced PHP. Laravel comes in handy when developing a PHP application.

Reasons why developers Laravel include:

Artisan: The Common Line Interface (CLI) in Laravel is used to automate programming tasks, helping developers to maximize time and energy.
Template engine: Laravel presents developers with easy-to-understand templates to create unique layouts with dynamic content by adding CSS and JS files into the template.
Libraries: Laravel provides developers with third-party resources that help them to build quick-to-respond and effective apps.
Migration systems: This ensures data isn't lost when developers make slight or complex modifications to an app's codes.

Others are security, unit testing, and MVC architecture.

Differences and Similarities Between Symfony and Laravel

There are several similarities and differences between Symfony and Laravel.

Similarities between Symfony and Laravel

Both frameworks use the PHP programming language.

As cross-platforms, both Symfony and Laravel are computer software that can be implemented on several computing platforms.

Both frameworks are multi-user and multi-language content that supports scaffolding and text search.

Differences between Symfony and Laravel

Symfony, though uses the PHP programming language, can be modified to Java or C#, while Laravel cannot.
Laravel is believed to rely on magic methods that produce shorter codes and easy-to-understand frameworks.
Symfony is suitable for large-scale and complex projects with features that suit a large number of businesses.
With Laravel, scalability matters a lot and codes must be written for it but Symfony offers several platforms for scalability.
In terms of template engines, Symfony supplies Twig (reusable codes), while Laravel provides Blades which encompasses several.

Pros and Cons of Symfony and Laravel

Pros of Symfony

Usage: Symfony is used on platforms such as eZ, Drupal, and Magento, hence often recommended.
Community size: A good number of developers use Symfony and form one of the biggest communities in the market.
Regular update: Symfony is often updated to meet developers’ needs.

Cons of Symfony

Often difficult to learn at the initial stages
By relying on other technologies, it makes some other applications slow
The development process is slow as testing is time-consuming.

Pros of Laravel

API integration: Symfony allows for the integration of apps and emails via its API
Update: Laravel is often updated with new PHP features.
Compatibility: Laravel blends perfectly with third-party platforms and libraries.
Community size: It’s vastly used and has great tools.

Cons of Laravel

Some codes may get broken as Laravel updates are not often compatible.
Some apps built in Laravel take longer to load on mobile interfaces.

Choosing the Right PHP Framework for Your Project

Both Symfony and Laravel, unarguably, remain the top PHP frameworks used in web development. However, choosing the right framework for your project depends on the features you want your application to have and the nature of the project.

Below are some features that are capable of influencing your decision on the framework to choose:

Complexity of the project: Symfony comes in handy when dealing with complex projects, also giving you the option to customize your application. The latest version, Symfony 4 allows you to add elements you demand when working on your project. Even though it’s expensive, the benefits are far-reaching.
Speed: When it comes to speed, Symfony does the magic, and selecting the best components may further enhance its speed.
Support: Symfony supports several languages such as PHP, YAML, and XLM, while Laravel supports only PHP with manual support for decorations and factories.
Access to database: Symfony migrates all data automatically, enabling developers to create a repository to access data when needed. With Laravel, developers often use the Eloquent database which migrates data manually, hence requiring Eloquent syntax to access the document. This is only after the CRUD operation is performed on the database.

Remember, it’s crucial to choose what works best for you.