Updated May 9, 2023
Difference Between Laravel vs Yii
To build some suitable web applications, PHP frameworks are in demand. The famous frameworks for the same are Laravel vs Yii. Laravel is used when a sophisticated syntax application is to be built. Yii is used as a high-performance framework that provides swift development. Let us compare both Yii vs Laravel frameworks to see their differences.
What are Laravel and Yii?
Following are some points of difference between Laravel vs Yii:
- Validation
Whenever a user wants to perform scenario-based validation, no package is available in Laravel. It does not provide any construct to validate a model in different scenarios. Yii allows you to easily assign a model from request parameters and manage its validation. You can customize your code as per your requirement.
- Client-Side Validation
To make validations on the client side, Laravel provides no default support. Yii provides perfect client-side validation of the forms. Once you define a set of rules, it can be used on both the client and server sides.
- Routing
When using Laravel user needs to declare a route for every action of the controller. Also protected, a controller’s function can be accessed from anywhere outside if a route is already defined. Laravel believes that the framework should provide a default route. In Yii, simple routing is possible as a route for every action is not required. All route actions are picked up by default.
- Crud Generation
For the admin panel, there exists a CRUD functionality for different tables that are present. There is no default support for this activity in Laravel. Yii has a separately dedicated tool known as Gii, which provides a web-based interface where interactively code can be generated. In addition to this, it also provides a command-line interface that prefers working on console environments.
- Documentation
Laravel has very well-prepared documentation. It is organized and written generically so everyone can understand and learn it well. Yii does not have strong documentation like Laravel. Using the documentation for Yii, you can quickly start with basic coding and work on it.
- Resources and Support
Many people use Laravel and, as a result, have a large community that provides excellent support. This community is growing more significantly day by day. On the other hand, Yii came before Laravel and had more developers using it, resulting in a larger community than Laravel.
Head to Head Comparison Between Laravel vs Yii (Infographics)
Below are the top 5 differences between Laravel vs Yii:
Key Differences between Laravel vs Yii
Both are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the major differences:
- Generic Comparison: Laravel is used when an application requires sophisticated syntax. It makes it easier to authenticate, route, create sessions, and cache. Laravel is a combination of all PHP frameworks. It provides many reliable applications like Superb IoC, a convenient migration system, and an Integrated system for module testing. Yii is a high-performance PHP framework enabling developers to build modern applications quickly. Yii uses MVC architecture and has a simple code. It provides a full-stack framework with a query builder, NoSQL databases, RESTful API, and many other features.
- Templating: Laravel provides a blade template system. This system lets you use PHP code in your views. Using Blade does not add any overhead, which improves application performance. This is achieved as blade view files are stored in the system in the .blade.php extension. All this code is changed into raw PHP files while processing. Yii, on the other hand, uses a default template system. The choice of template is given to the development team using it. The templates that it provides are Twig and Smarty.
- Frameworks: The framework Yii vs Laravel frameworks uses differs at the backend. Yii uses the MVC framework. As a result, Yii can utilize all components efficiently. Laravel, on the other hand, does not provide a modular approach.
- Performance: The performance of any application depends on real-time when it works with honest and critical data. Web applications are not based on performance often. But the implementation of these frameworks plays an important role. Compared to the best coding high-performance applications, Yii stands out as the best framework for PHP. Laravel is comparatively slow, and there are resources present online that help in speeding up performance.
- Implementation of form validation: Validation is applied differently in both these applications. Laravel has a distinctive class to perform validation, enabling database validation anytime and anywhere. Unification can be extended easily by using its Eloquent CRM. While in Yii, form validation is handled by the class of a model and all rules which can be easily stored in the created model or form. Once you receive an update from the data, you can quickly check the rules and validation scripts for making changes in the developed model. This may get complicated when validation is done within a controller.
- Advantages: Laravel has easy authentication. It also has a clean and straightforward API to help users send emails using cloud-based services. It integrates all applications very quickly. Yii comes equipped with CRUD generators. It also has AJAX helpers that come in a GRID format. Also, it does not require repetitive code writing and is reusable.
Laravel vs Yii Comparison Table
Let’s look at the top comparison:
| Basis of Comparison |
Laravel |
Yii |
| Requirements |
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| Object Relational Mapping ORM |
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| Testing | Testing must be Out-of-the-box PHPUnit with Symfony components like HttepKernel, DomCrawler, etc. | Here testing requires only PHPUnit and Codeception. |
| Migration | Migration requires a migration class and data-filling tool. | This requires only the migration class. |
| Caching | It has the following components for caching:
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It has the following components for caching:
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Conclusion
You can use both Laravel and Yii frameworks for full-stack development. They both are good and bad in their areas. Most people consider Laravel to be the winner of these two. With this, Yii also provides a robust environment and excellent security. Hence, selecting between the two would be the developer’s choice based on his requirements and choose the best between the two.
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