Laravel vs. Symfony

Both Laravel and Symfony are the cross-platform php frameworks that speed up the development of the web application.

Let's understand the differences between Laravel and Symfony.

• Programming Language
  Symfony is a framework written in a "common php". Here, common php means that the framework is written in a universal code. Every programming language has some basic constructs that make them unique and better than others. The php programming language has some magic methods and traits that Laravel uses on a regular basis, so code in Laravel becomes shorter, which is easier to understand and also changes the behavior of the applications.
• Database access
  Both the frameworks, i.e., Laravel and Symfony, access the databases in a different way. Symfony uses Doctrine, while Laravel uses Eloquent to access the database. In Doctrine, migrations are created automatically; all we need to define the model and the fields in a model. In Laravel, the data can be accessed more easily, but we need some knowledge about SQL. The biggest advantage of Laravel is the coverage of possibilities. When some situation arises in Doctrine that the function returns an error, but in the case of Laravel, Eloquent is based on 'accept everything'. In Laravel, the invalid data is also parsed and turned into predictable SQL.
• Template engine
  The template engine used by Laravel and Symfony differ. Laravel uses Blade while Symfony uses Twig. The Blade is better than the Twig. The advantage of using Blade is the reusability of code. Suppose you create a function that you want to use in both controller and template, then we need to define the function twice in Twig. The reason is that templates cannot use php functions, and the controller does not use templates. But, in Blade, the functions can be used directly means whatever we define in the controller can also be used in the template.
• Scalability and Modularity
  Symfony provides reusable components that offer better modularity. Both the frameworks, i.e., Laravel and Symfony, are based on MVC architecture. Symfony is more useful for complex and large projects as the codes are organized in a proper way.
• Authentication
  Laravel makes the authentication very simpler as it contains the in-built authentication system, while Symfony has the custom authentication system, which is not simplified as in Laravel.
• Database support
  Laravel supports databases such as SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Microsoft BI, MongoDB while Symfony supports databases such as Microsoft BI, MySQL, NoSQL, PostgreSQL, CouchDB, DynamoDB, MongoDB, MemcacheDB, GraphDB Membase, GemFire, Oracle.
• Form and Validators
  In Laravel, the validation can be done in two ways, i.e., either the validation can be done in a form or through a manual validation of a request. In Symfony, we can validate a model. In Symfony, it is very difficult to validate the same object in multiple ways, but in Laravel, the same validation logic can be added in different forms in which an object is either created or modified. The customized validation can be used in both Laravel and Symfony. If we want to use the validation rule that does not exist in Laravel, then in Laravel, we can use After Validation Hook. In Symfony, we need to create a new validator.
• Cache and Performance
  Both the frameworks are caching the views, but Symfony caches the data by default. Laravel works faster than Symfony without using a cache, so we had never felt to use the cache in Laravel. Therefore, we conclude that the performance of Laravel is better than the Symfony, and Laravel does not require as much cache as in Symfony.
• Debug and Development tools
  Debugging is very important for an application. With good IDE support, debugging and profiling tools are also required to find the issues in an application. When we talk about the IDE, Symfony provides better support than Laravel. The IDE support of Laravel is very minimal. Laravel contains an advanced panel while Symfony contains a very simple panel. Symfony shows all the issues and all the advanced profiling details while Laravel shows some basic issues and some basic profiling details.
• Dependency injection
  Applications have a lot of services and components which are dependent on each other. We user ServiceContainer, which is a php object that stores all the information about the dependencies. Laravel autodetects all the dependencies while in Symfony, we use "autowire" which can be turned on by adding autowire:true to the dependency configuration.
• ORM (Object Relational Mapping)
  Both the frameworks Laravel and Symfony have ORM features. The ORM is required to map the records from an object in code to the database. In order to achieve this, we need to create a model that interacts with a database.
  Laravel uses Eloquent while Symfony uses Doctrine to interact with your database. Eloquent is easier and friendly to use as compared to Doctrine.