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I'm new here, but I assure you that I've read the other question/answers related to my question of which is better and I have to say they are outdated.

CakePHP 2.0 is out and it seems to be a major improvement in terms of functionality and speed performance in comparison to its' older versions. I'm the type of guy who likes to understand the inner workings of things to be able to use it at my best, and while stuck at the CakePHP 2.0 documentation I'm having some difficult time to comprehend what's going on, because they are starting off way to advanced in details before letting me grasp the fundamentals (or maybe that's just me). Not to mention, I've good knowledge in PHP, HTML, & CSS and programming in general.

Suddenly I came across CodeIgniter in one of the Yahoo Answers recommendation and came to know about it as an alternative to CakePHP, but I'm still very inexperienced in MVC programming techniques to be able to take a decision and this is why I came here to ask the experts.

I'm going to build an organizations' complete ERP system with PHP MySQL and figured out that either CakePHP or CodeIgniter should be adopted as means for rapid development frameworks, since I will be the only developer to start with.

So here are my questions in a summary: 1. After the realease of CakePHP 2.0, how does it compare with CodeIgniters' in terms of speed and features? 2. Which processing CORE is more stable, more well tested, and more supported by the community? I'm going to depend on their core for the ERP solution, so it needs to have a good base and frequent upgrades (bug-fixes etc.).

  1. Aside from all of these questions and in a total subjective GUT FEELING you have, which one do you prefer because you like? (without providing technical reasons for this question).

Some of you would not like to answer my question directly to avoid "flames" or whatsoever and that's why I tell you just provide help or hints, that would be enough.

Thanks in advance, Arto

Arto Kalishian
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2 Answers2

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Although this question is closed as being unconstructive, some of the answers are quite good.

I think the main difference between CodeIgniter and Cake (which I've begun using extensively) is the fact that Cake relies heavily on so-called "automagic". For example, Cake has Authentication and ACL components which CodeIgniter currently lacks. In the latter case you would have to rely on third-party plugins. There's an abundance of third-pary plugins, components, helpers, etc. for both frameworks.

CodeIgniter is hosted by EllisLab and has more than 70 developers listed on GitHub, while Cake, which is a foundation, has almost 100 contributors. I think in both cases, official, long-term support is quite good.

As Anh Pham has pointed out Cake is a bit more rigid in it's conventions and that's closely related to the "automagic", while CodeIgniter allows more freedom in defining your own conventions.

I can't say anything about the CodeIgniter documentation, but the Cake Cookbook is very extensive. The Cake console application for "baking" models, controllers and views is also a big pro. Not sure if CodeIgniter comes with the same console tools.

The only downside to Cake is community support. CodeIgniter has its forums and IRC, while Cake has its own support channels (Q&A, Google Groups, IRC), but neither seems very focussed. I might be mistaken, but there isn't one central place where developers, power users and beginners mix together, like on the CodeIgniter forums. In the past I've had more luck getting answers related to Cake on StackOverflow.

Community
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mensch
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Speed should not be a concern, especially when Cake2 is significantly faster than the older versions. Cake would probably provide more features out of the box than CI (although I don't know about CI plugins out there), that also makes it more rigid in development: If you want to do things your way, it's quite a hassle.

I think both frameworks are comparable in the "stable, more well tested, and more supported by the community" department.

Since you have a good base knowledge of web development, why don't you try both of them and see how you like each of them. Although I have to say Cake probably has a steeper learning curve at first for newcomer.

Anh Pham
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  • Thanks for your reply and time Anh Pham, it seems that no one is replying because I do not have enough reputation to "like" answers! – Arto Kalishian Nov 07 '11 at 08:42