CakePHP is great for developing web facing and backend server applications using Controller and shells but I have a case where I just need to embed the library inside an app. I'm using TideSDK and I need to expose some PHP functionality to it and I would like to build it in a manner similar to how cakePHP models behave but I don't need all the other fluff that cake provides like Shells, Controllers, Helpers etc. Just the code ORM / Model / ActiveRecord stuff that makes working with data so easy.
Is there a way to use cakePHP scaled down and invoked simply through a PHP class (no web servers, shells, etc..)
Or are there frameworks similar to CakePHP that are ment for this specific domain?
I'm asking because I started doing it myself but I keep re-inventing pieces of CakePHP core which is obviously not ideal.