php mvc + templating engine

Question

I have been out of PHP world for awhile, and now I am back. Having used mvc pattern extensively in asp.net, I would love to use it again in php. I used codeigniter in 2006, is it still the standard? I know there are others such as Symphony and phpCake.

These are the features I would like:

• lightweight and fast
• preferably not a huge learning curve
• no db query optimization included
• templating engine (such as Smarty) included - I can use Smarty, but I am wondering if there is a product that incorporates the mvc with the templating engine.

What is the standard now? What would you recommend that fits the above criteria?

Answer 1

Symfony2 is one of the most popular at the moment, it is modern and has a big community behind it. It has all the features you want, but it has a pretty big learning curve.

Answer 2

You may use Kohana Framework which is one of the most popular out there. Kohana includes the features you have mentioned and you have also use Kostache (mustache implementation) with it. Just check it out at http://kohanaframework.org/

Answer 3

Give it a try to Symfony2. It is a very respectable framework. It incorporates a template engine named "twig" developed by the same company behind Symfony project, which is similar to smarty. And to be fair, the learning curve is not that bad if you have a background working with mvc.

The documentation and learning resources are pretty good, the profiler incorporated with it is one of the nicest things I've seen lately and also it makes use of the latest incorporation to PHP, such as namespaces.