Laravel vs Codeigniter

Difference between Laravel and Codeigniter

Laravel is a PHP framework. It is an open-source framework used in web application development. This framework is based on the model view controller design pattern due to this project developed with the help of this framework are more structured and manageable. This framework reuses the existing functionality of the core framework, along with its own features. This framework has all the basics features of earlier frameworks. Web application developed with this framework’s help is more secure; it prevents the websites from hacker’s attacks. Laravel syntax and style is considered to be elegant.CodeIgniter is considered to be Simple and fast for a learner to pick up and start developing. Laravel is still popular as the best PHP web framework for its more advanced features. Laravel has gained massive popularity over less than a decade and holds double the market share than CodeIgniter. While CodeIgniter has shared the attention for 14 years, the newbie, While both are being used globally for web development, CodeIgniter has been popular in 43 countries against Laravel leading with 113 countries.

Head To Head Comparison Between Laravel and Codeigniter (Infographics)

Below is the top 6 difference between Laravel vs Codeigniter

Key differences between Laravel and Codeigniter

Both are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the major difference:

• CodeIgniter does not support ORM, while Laravel enables us as a developer to take advantage of Eloquent object-relational mapping ORM. We can use the ORM system to work with varieties of databases more efficiently by Active Record implementation. Eloquent Object Relational Mapping further allows the developer to interact with databases directly through the specific model of individual database tables. A developer can even use the model to achieve common tasks like inserting new records and running database queries.
• CodeIgniter more database compared to Laravel; database supported by both framework are following MySQL, Microsoft Bi, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB. Additional database supported by Codeigniter is the following ORACLE, Microsoft SQL Server, oriented, IBM DB2, and JDBC compatible.
• CodeIgniter required the developer to create and maintain modules by using Modular Extension additionally, while Laravel is designed with built-in modularity features. which enables developers to divide a large project into small modules through the bundle. We can further reuse these modules across multiple projects.
• Many developers have found the issue in the CodeIgniter application on PHP 7 platform, while these are not found in the case of Laravel
• CodeIgniter does not provide any specific features to simplify database schema migration. To do it required lots of efforts. Laravel makes it easy by the database agnostic migrations feature provided by it. This makes it easier for developers to modify and share the application’s database schemas without writing complex code to perform this operation. We can further develop the application’s database schemas easily by combining the database agnostic migration with the schema builder provided by Laravel Framework.
• CodeIgniter does not provide a built-in template engine. The programmer needs to integrate the framework with robust template engines like Smarty to do common tasks and boost web applications’ performance. Laravel provides inbuilt support robust template engine Blade. This template engine enables PHP Developers to optimize the performance of the sites by enhancing and manipulating various views.
• CodeIgniter does not provide features to simplify the development of REST APIs. Developers have to write more code to create custom REST APIs while developing web applications with the CodeIgniter framework; in Laravel, RESTful Controllers provided by it enables Developers to build REST APIs without putting in extra time and efforts. We can simply set the $restful property as true in the RESTful Controller to build custom REST APIs without writing extra code.
• The programmer gets Modular extensions to create and maintain the module in CodeIgniter as Built-in Modules are not supported. However, Laravel allows the reuse of modules.
• For data migration, Laravel has wider support in terms of formats. CodeIgniter has a limitation and can support limited formats. There is no default composer on this framework, and a third party library is a time and effort consuming option.

Features of CodeIgniter

Features of CodeIgniter are given below:

• Extremely Light Weight
• Model-View-Controller Based System
• Query Builder Database Support
• Security and XSS Filtering
• Form and Data Validation
• Session Management
• Libraries for image manipulations resizing, cropping, rotating, etc. Supports GD, NetPBM and Image Magick.
• Provides classes for email sending, gives support for the Attachments, HTML/Text emails, multiple protocols like SMTP, POP and more.

Features of Laravel Framework

• Modularity: It provides many built-in modules and libraries which help in the enhancement of web applications. All modules are integrated with the Composer dependency manager, which results in easy updates.
• Routing: It gives the Web developer a flexible approach to defining various routes in the web application. Routing helps scale up the web application in the best way and increases its performance of applications.
• Testability: Laravel gives various features and helpers which help to the Software Testers through various test cases. This feature helps in maintaining the code as per the user’s requirements.
• Query Builder and ORM: It provides a powerful query builder which helps in querying large databases using various simple chains of methods. It gives ORM (Object Relational Mapper) and ActiveRecord implementation called Eloquent.
• Configuration Management Features: Websites designed with the help of Laravel are running on different environments with a different configuration, which means that there is a constant change in its configurations. It gives a consistent and powerful approach to maintain the configuration in an efficient way.
• Template Engine: Blade Template engine used by Laravel, which is a lightweight template language used to design hierarchical layouts and blocks with predefined different types of blocks that include dynamic content.
• Schema Builder: Laravel maintains a variety of database definitions and schemas in PHP code. It also provides support to track all changes with respect to database migrations.
• Authentication: User authentication is a common feature in all websites. Laravel provides designing authentication as it has features such as register, send password reminders and forgot password.

Laravel vs Codeigniter Comparison Table

Below is the topmost comparison between Laravel vs CodeIgniter

The basis of comparison	Laravel	CodeIgniter
Definition	Laravel is an open-source PHP framework based on MVC pattern, which is robust and easy to learn and intended for programmers who need a modest and elegant toolkit to build full-featured web applications.	CodeIgniter is an Open Source, powerful PHP application development framework with a very small footprint, built for programmers who demand a simple and elegant toolkit to build full-featured web applications.
Database Model	Object-Oriented	Relational Object-Oriented
Programming Paradigm	Laravel is Object-Oriented Event-Driven Functional	Component Oriented
Routing	Explicit Routing	Supports both explicit and implicit Routing
Built-in Modules	Allows programmers to divide a project into small modules through a bundle. They can further reuse the modules across various projects.	It doesn’t support built-in modularity features, requires programmers to create and maintain modules by using Modular Extension additionally.
HTTPS Support	Allows developers to establish custom HTTPs routes. Developers also have the choice to build a specific URL for every HTTPS route. Laravel moreover preserves the data transmission secure by adding https:// protocol before the URL automatically.	It does not support the HTTPS route sufficiently. The developers have to manage URL helpers to make the data transmission protected by developing pats.

Conclusion

As we saw both Laravel vs Codeigniter Frameworks and found that Laravel has more features compared to CodeIgniter, we can adopt Laravel in our web applications development. While our applications need to support interactions with varieties of a database, we go with CodeIgniter.

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to the top difference between Laravel vs Codeigniter. Here we also discuss the key differences with infographics and comparison table. You may also have a look at the following Laravel vs Codeigniter articles to learn more –

1. Laravel vs WordPress
2. Laravel vs Yii
3. Laravel vs CakePHP
4. Laravel vs Symfony