Frameworks have taken over in the PHP world and everyone it up in arms talking about them. I’m not sure when this all started and who was the first individual/company/group to release one. Whatever the fact, people are talking about them! What I have noticed is that many frameworks very differently. Some support MVC some Ajax, some only PHP5 some only PHP4, that’s why I feel it’s hard to pick just the right one. Onlamp.com had an article by Joe Stump (very good one if fact) on how to create your own (if you want to). There’s lots out there, all you have to do is check out this site which lists some of the PHP Frameworks. What I have noticed and what I can decide on is that these framework companies (I don’t know if they really are companies, some are like Zend some aren’t, but that’s what I’ll call them for now) have all spent time to redesign there web sites. Zend started this trend with there very nice design by Varien and PRADO and Cake soon followed. I personally like Cake’s site because of the color schema. So why the redesigns and why talk about them? I’m no expert at any of this visualization and graphic design stuff, but I can tell you a company’s site design sells better than what they have to offer. With so many PHP framework’s in the market today these three companies have decided to go one step further and try to get recognition by there design. Think about it for a minute. If you were to go to a site to buy shoes what one would you buy from if both sites offered the same prices, style, and make, comfortableshoes.com or shoes.com? You would go to shoes.com because there design looks more professional and you think that they are the better company. On the other hand what if they offered different services? What one would you choose? It’s all about visualization. The design of your site sells! That’s exactly what these Frameworks are doing. In the near future one of these frameworks will become a leader in the community.

I personally don’t have a favorite framework to use; in fact I’m new to this arena anyways. As always it’s a personal preference.