Updated May 9, 2023

Difference Between Phalcon vs Laravel

Phalcon is referred to as a web framework. It is a PHP framework based on the model view controller architecture or pattern. Andres Gutierrez mainly developed it. It was initially released in the year 2012. It is written in C and PHP. It supports different platforms like Unix, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Zephir/C extensions are loaded with PHP once on the web server’s daemon start process, which makes Phalcon known as such. The code is not interpreted as it is compiled to a specific platform and processor. These classes and functions are ready to use for any application. Phalcon has some basic features like low overhead, which helps in less memory consumption and CPU compared to other frameworks. Phalcon uses models, views, components, and controllers to implement MVC and HMVC. The other features are dependency injection, Rest, AutoLoader, and Router.

Laravel is referred to as a PHP web framework. It is mainly based on the MVC pattern. Taylor Otwell developed it and initially released it in the year 2011. Laravel has features like a modular packaging system, different ways to access the database management system, and application deployment and maintenance. It is written in PHP 7 language.

Laravel is robust and easy to understand. It reuses the existing components of different frameworks, which helps create the web application. Laravel has excellent features to enhance functionality and incorporates basic features like Codeigniter, Yii, and other programming languages like Ruby on Rails. With the help of Laravel, the web application becomes more scalable owing to the Laravel framework. It helps in saving time while designing the web application, and it includes namespaces and interfaces.

Head-to-Head Comparison Between Phalcon vs Laravel (Infographics)

Below are the top 6 differences between Phalcon vs Laravel :

Key Differences Between Phalcon vs Laravel

Both Phalcon vs Laravel are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the major Differences:

The Phalcon framework is one of the fastest PHP frameworks because it has a framework extension built in C, making it extremely fast and efficient. Laravel, on the other hand, is mainly built on PHP and Symfony, making it a comparatively slow framework.
Phalcon uses the volt template engine, which is mainly embedded into Phalcon itself and is inspired by the Jinja template engine. It has an obvious and understandable syntax. It compiles very fast and avoids the bottleneck for frameworks’ overall speed. In laravel, we have Eloquent ORM, which is simple and fast. ORM helps organize the application database and supports most databases like MySQL, Postgres, etc.
Phalcon has good performance and speed, whereas laravel has poor performance and less speed.
Phalcon requires good programming skills, and you need to know C programming. For laravel, there is a need for programming skills to understand and write the code.
Phalcon has loosely coupled components and is customizable with Zephir. Laravel comes with its command-line interface called Artisan. Using Laravel, developers can perform various tasks such as migration, seeding the database, etc. Developers mainly use Laravel for building REST APIs, resource routing, and intuitive Eloquent CRUD, as it is quicker to write.
Phalcon is more flexible in terms of the project structure. Laravel is not as flexible as Phalcon.
Phalcon does not have a good community and documentation as compared to Laravel. Laravel has a good community, and its documentation is thorough and perfect. It covers everything and is very helpful to experienced and new users alike. It makes writing web apps with authentication capabilities and a fully powered authorized class easy.
Phalcon is challenging to learn, but it has less learning curve. Despite being easy to learn, Laravel can be difficult to understand and work with due to the lack of online documentation and support when features are updated in the new version.
Phalcon uses the Volt template system. Laravel has a powerful template system called Blade.
Phalcon uses good design practices, whereas laravel follows bad design practices.
Phalcon needs root access to install the PHP extension and framework. Laravel does not have such a problem. Laravel sometimes complicates debugging and autocompletion.

Phalcon vs Laravel Comparison Table

As you can see, there are many Comparisons between Phalcon vs Laravel. Let’s look at the top Comparison between Phalcon vs Laravel –

Basis of Comparison	Phalcon	Laravel
Definition	It is based on a PHP web framework.	It is an open-source PHP web framework.
Developed	Andres Gutierrez has developed it.	Taylor Otwell developed it.
Scalable	It is less scalable comparatively.	It scales better than Phalcon.
Simple	It is complex comparatively.	It is simple.
Features	It has features like low overhead, MVC and HMVC, etc.	It has basic features of the PHP framework and symphony.
Website	Phalconphp.com	Laravel.com

Conclusion

Phalcon vs laravel are both web frameworks and are based on PHP. It follows the same pattern or architecture: Model View Controller. Developers use PHP as a programming language when developing in both frameworks. Laravel has a rich template system which is a robust template. It has a built-in ORM, which works on traditional object-oriented programming or relational scheme. Phalcon used the Volt template engine, which is faster than ORM. People mainly use Phalcon because of its speedier execution.

Laravel is more popular than Phalcon as it has better documentation available, which helps beginners or new developers understand and develop the web application in the same framework. Laravel uses the PHP framework’s essential features, which gives the edge to this framework over the phalcon. It has a greater variety of collections of libraries to work and develop the app. Whenever I need help, I can reach out to a higher and bigger community.

Phalcon vs laravel are almost the same but have different pros and cons. People prefer Laravel over Phalcon because it is more widely used and popular. Some developers prefer to work with frameworks with larger community support and quickly fix with. There is no harm in using the other because until we explore the technology, we will not be able to work with or cannot be comfortable with that. So, it depends on the developer’s requirement and time to select the web application framework.