The world of web technologies has changed drastically in the recent times. Researchers and experts in this field have put in much effort to outperform previously prominent techniques and methodologies to ease the load of developers and web application development companies.
Due to the change in practices and procedures, there hasn’t been a drop in the quality of the end-product rather it has helped in reaching to perfection, saving time and building superior products.
Web development frameworks restrain developers from writing basic level code, devising conventional theories and more such stuff, instead let them concentrate on deploying all important logic of the application in the code. Developers can just focus on incorporating logic in their code leaving aside the aspects of protocols, process and thread management, which is taken care of by the efficient web development frameworks.
There are several frameworks prevalent in the market that are used by industry leaders and leading web development companies for completing their tasks, but what are the most reliable of them is still not known to many of us. In the following section, we’ll throw light on the same providing you a list of top web app development frameworks. Most of these are open-source frameworks and thus, easy-to-access.
AngularJS
Developed and upheld by a community of developers and the search engine giant – Google. It was released back in 2010 and since its inception in the market, AngularJS has taken the world by storm with its refined functionalities, quick build time and innovative approach. It is an open-source framework for building quality web applications with minimal effort.
It is preferred by modern day developers for its ability to blend HTML attributes with Angular directives. Apart from this, AngularJS is a lightweight, secure, reliable and fast framework. Working on the two-way data binding mechanism it allows developers to access JavaScript objects on the go. The community managing this framework is vast and aims at helping a myriad of developers around the world with their doubts and queries.
EmberJS
Released in 2011, EmberJS is an open-source framework maintained by a group of ambitious developers, who favor it for building large-scale complex applications. Since it’s a powerful tool to work on, developers have ensured that it’s easy-to-comprehend and learn. No alteration has been done with internal terminology and a traditional approach is followed with pre-defined functions to build new apps.
It is also preferred by web development companies for developing scalable single-page web applications. EmberJS is flexible and developers need not possess any additional knowledge to get started.
Some of the reasons why developers prefer the framework include its simple structure, pre-defined modules and components, strong built-in router and stability.
CakePHP
CakePHP is one of the oldest open-source PHP frameworks, which still has the potential to stay in the market despite new modern frameworks making their way to the development arena in the recent past. Released in 2005, it is available under MIT license and can be used free of cost for developing personal as well as commercial projects.
Recently, with the new version, CakePHP 3.0 has taken over the web, which makes it even more powerful and efficient than earlier. The latest version comes with improved session management and ORM, improved migrations, more flexible and faster routing, improved debugging toolbar and a set of standalone libraries.
The applications made with the help of this framework aren’t expensive, but yes, they are definitely very effective. In its early days, big brands opted CakePHP to build their web applications including Hyundai, Express, BMW and Zumba, which itself is a proven fact of its ability to build high-quality web apps.
Phalcon
Released back in 2012, this open-source framework has managed to attract a wide range of developers towards its camp. It was built as a PHP extension written in C and was aimed at producing desired results quickly. ‘Speed’ was the main focus while developing this framework and today unarguably, Phalcon is the fastest framework developers can try their hands on.
Despite being an extension, it is loaded with features like controllers, inbuilt templates, query language, routing controls, ORM and more. It won’t be an understatement if we call it a market leader as it outperforms most frameworks in terms of performance, speed and understandability.
Ruby on Rails
Released in 2004, Ruby on Rails has been the basis for hundreds of applications- most popular being Basecamp, GitHub, SoundCloud, Twitch, Airbnb, Square and Shopify. It’s an open-source framework allowing developers not only to use it for free but also invite them to contribute code to make it better than ever.
Some of the points that make it better than others include its tool factory, which has several tools ready to formulate a feature-rich application in minutes, a library of codes and support for test automation. The only concern for developers while working on this tool is its boot speed.
Symfony
It is also an open-source framework released back in 2005. With an ability to build complex and robust applications, Symfony is one of the trending tools that is favored by developers. It was developed with an aim to speed up the whole development process by deploying reusable code fragments. It can be defined as a perfect blend of reusable components along with an active community of members.
Some of the popular projects developed using Symfony include Drupal, Laravel, PHPBB and PIWIk.
Laravel
If you want to work on the best PHP framework, choose none other than Laravel. It is flexible, easy-to-learn and capable of building large scale complex applications within a matter of few days. It helps build applications faster than usual, often referred to rapid application development. Thanks to the inclusion of ‘Homestead’, which helps to get start even without prior installation of the web server, PHP or any other package on your local machine.
Another powerful resource that is included is the templating engine, ‘Blade‘. Templates are available on the go and it supports plain PHP, which means performance isn’t affected even for a minute. Conceptualize your idea, collect requisites and start building- it’s that easy and simple.
Plus, it has plenty of free resources and tutorials for learning so even if you are a beginner in the web development domain, you’ll get underway quickly.
ASP.net
ASP.net is one of the primitive tools for website and mobile application development. It is also an open-source web framework that is used to build websites based on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It allows you to scale and embed complex functionalities at a later stage. It works with HTTP protocol and is built using CLR (Common Language Runtime).
ASP.net allows you to enjoy the power of building complex apps within a secure and safe environment with a minimal effort in code development. Deployment is smooth and drag and drop features make it even easier for UI elements to accommodate.
Zend
Another great framework on which developers have relied since its inception in 2006 is Zend. It is known for solving end-to-end rapid mobile and web application delivery complications. Supported and trusted by big players like BBC, Cisco WebEx and more, it has traveled a long away in proving its worth.
The development team at Zend regards it for its stability, robustness and ability to handle complexities along the way. It is not easy for beginners to start their careers in this framework. Zend is complex in its own way and developer needs to spend quite some time in understanding the whole flow.
Developers have secretly drifted towards modern, easy-to-use frameworks like Laravel and Phalcon. But, it doesn’t mean that it’s the end for Zend. The release of its latest version, Zend 3 is around the corner, which would dictate the future terms for this framework.
Django
Django is a popular Python framework used by developers around the globe to build web applications. Released in 2005, it is free and follows MVT (model-view-template) architectural pattern. It is upheld by a non-profit organization named Django Software Foundation (DSF) with a primary goal of creating websites with less complex structures and databases.
The main motto is reusability in addition to rapid development, which keeps developers moving. There are several reasons why to opt for this framework and here are few of them:
a. It has tons of valuable packages at its disposal
b. The documentation is excellent allowing developers in the tender stage to learn, implement and excel
c. The Django community is supportive at each step helping you to overcome barriers along the way
Popular websites using Django include The Washington Times, Disqus, Nextdoor, Mozilla, Pinterest, Instagram and Bitbucket.
Aforementioned are some of the popular web app development frameworks that ease the load from developer’s shoulders providing them with a secure, faster and reliable way to deploy development procedure. Each framework has its pros and cons, which allow us to leave you with the freedom to choose any according to your business needs, requirements and feasibility.
Manish Jain
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