PHP frameworks

Today I visited PHP frameworks and noticed a few PHP frameworks I didn't know yet. I know the mainstream frameworks are CakePHP, Zend, Symfony and CodeIgniter, but I saw some new ones I haven't heard of before, like Zoop, Prado, Yii and Akelos. Also, I read about Kohana.

I tried to get an overview of each framework, also the ones I already tried or heard about. The problem with this is that I am confused. I have used CakePHP for quite some projects and most of the time, it's great. But, I got the feeling there are some things returning in each or some projects for which CakePHP hasn't got the perfect solution.

CakePHP and most of the other frameworks are great for doing some database connection and helping you starting a blog in 15 or 20 minutes, but what's next? Does one of these frameworks have a killer feature?

I downloaded some of these frameworks and did a little testing. Little, not much, so everything I write down here is not based on some scientific report, but its just MHO.

There are a few frameworks I would like to test some more. Like Yii, Akelos, CodeIgniter and Kohana. Yii sounds great. Akelos seems to have a killer feature for me, the admin plugin. This enables me to create a database with my own tables (like CakePHP) but, extend this in a few minutes with a complete user/roles system including a great frontend. Akelos is definitely worth a few of your minutes.

[caption id="attachment_73" align="center" width="300" caption="Screenshot of Akelos admin plugin"][/caption]

This is it for now, maybe I'll be back with some more information on these frameworks, in case you have any experience you want to share the world, let us know!

Website usability testing

While looking into some Twitter accounts this morning, I came across a link to Silverback which was posted by quinns. It claims to be an application for Guerilla (or Gorrilla?) usability testing. The application can be used to test software or websites.