Why Is YII Framework So Popular in a Global E-commerce Industry?

Recently, I was conducting in-depth research around technology stacks that exist behind the world’s most known e-commerce websites in the United States and India. It’s no wonder that these two countries are deeply involved in most major online businesses. In India, the majority of organizations involved in online activities prefer to use Pre-built solutions like Magento or Cs cart. However, when it came to custom implementation, I faced YII such as Jabong fabfurnish. So, I wonder: what is so special about YII? I’ll try to depict the answer as clear as possible.

Often, people wonder why YII development services are in higher demand than those based on Zend, Symfony, CodeIgniter or CakePHP. Well, if you wish to hear a 100% objective and reasoned response, I will disappoint you: even the most experienced developers stress that their choices are rather subjective. It matters for one’s own preferences and knowledge.

Before analysing any framework, it is crucial to have a general idea. YII is an Open Source, component-based MVC PHP web app framework. It was named among top PHP platforms in 2015. As mentioned by Wiki, YII is spelled “Yee” and is an acronym for “Yes It Is!” It gained its popularity and high demand being a robust platform for Web 2.0 applications. Among all useful features, it is impossible to ignore:

1. MVC,

2. DAO/ActiveRecord,

3. I18N/L10N,

4. Caching,

5. Suthentication and role-based access control,

6. Scaffolding,

7. Testing,

8. Full documentation.

Matter of taste

I know it sounds unprofessional, but it’s true so far: while some more or less experienced developers are doing okay with Angular or BackBoneJS, others prefer YII.

Sure thing, you might try to compare different features for contemporary frameworks, examine platforms through various performance tests, but the final choice will be grounded in your own personal decision. It is true, so far, that the majority of top-end framework is identical by its basic functions. The main things that are different are:

1. Naming convention

2. File system structure

3. Integration

4. Programming languages

Except for these particular features, all famous frameworks guarantee such elements as:

· sandbox,

· MVC,

· ORM,

· code generator,

· cache.

You can observe some powerful sites that were built on YII to find out how good this framework really is.

What do we really like about YII Framework?

There is one thing no developer will deny: YII is loved for its lightweight! Any YII development company is clever enough for selecting this framework as it is very simple to understand and use. If you have some extra urgent projects, you’d better stop on this one as other popular frameworks are not that easy, and they lack detailed documentation. YII does not require excessive skills from potential developers.

You will not find any excessive (remember Zend?) and useless complications. The core of YII framework is perfectly documented, so it is usually faster and simpler to view and change (if necessary) source code instead of searching for documentation.

Scalability

YII offers a wide range of opportunities for enlargement and override of basically any element in the framework. It allows for the developing of custom elements, modifying file structure, and more.

Everything in its place

YII includes just about everything a developer may demand in order to begin their activity, with the framework provided out-of-the-box. Have a look in its extensions to find whatever you need to build your platform. In the end, you will discover that your website is not overloaded with any unused elements.

Excellent documentation

I have already mentioned this advantage several times, but let’s come back to it. First and foremost, perfect documentation leads to a growing community. YII framework possesses approximately 850 extensions and is still expanding.

Why choose YII instead of Zend Framework?

Unlike Zend, YII is free from excessive complications. It is not that academic and scary. Zend Framework is too intricate even in terms of practicality. In addition, some YII developers are apathetic about the naming convention. You can get what I mean by checking Magento. Notice in its source code, the abstraction lever proposed by Zend is redundant. This framework can be viewed only as a package of premium-level libraries that can be quickly integrated in YII.

What about the rest of the well-known frameworks?

I will start with Symfony. No doubt, it’s a great one. It is making progress all the time. However, this progress is also Sympfony’s biggest virtue and flaw. It may serve only as an enterprise solution.

You may recall CodeIgniter based on PHP4. Perhaps, it would appear on the last place in any chart. It lacks primitive features such as a user-friendly interface, convenient templates, and systems used to support out-of-the-box layouts. What else can we talk about? In contrast, YII has no problems with these elements.

At last, you may ask what’s wrong with CakePHP. Well, nothing at all. I’ll tell you more: it’s pretty much the same to YII. Perhaps, the only obvious YII’s advantage here is its outstanding documentation.

Building an Open Source e-commerce website on YII is one of the best options available to most developers have today.