10 PHP Frameworks for developers to help build challenging web apps

1.  Symfony

Symfony is a PHP framework for web projects. It allow web developers to build complex web applications easily.  This framework facilitates long-term maintenance and scalability by complying with standard development rules.

2.  PHP-MVC

PHP-MVC is an extremely simple but effective Model-View-Controller application structure.
It is clean, easy-to-learn, secure, highly documented and have a self-explaining structure, with beautiful URL and optional Composer integration and fits the PSR-1/2 coding guidelines.

3.  Zend Framework 2

Zend Framework is the most popular open source framework for modern, high performing web application. Zend Framework 2 evolved from Zend Framework 1, a successful PHP framework for developing web applications and services using PHP 5.3+. ZF2 follows the SOLID object oriented design principle.

4.  FuelPHP

Fuel is a simple, flexible, community driven PHP 5.3 web framework based on the best ideas of other frameworks with a fresh start. It is a Model View Controller framework which gives you the ability to add a powerful layer between the controller and the view.

5.  CakePHP

CakePHP makes building web applications simpler, faster and require less code. CakePHP comes with built-in tools for input validation, CSRF protection, Form tampering protection, SQL injection prevention, and XSS prevention, helping you keep your application safe & secure.

6.  CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter is a powerful and fully baked PHP Framework. It is a proven, agile & open PHP web application framework with a small footprint. It is powering the next generation of web apps built for PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications.

7.  Phalcon

Phalcon is a web framework implemented as a C extension offering high performance and lower resource consumption. Phalcon is an open source, full stack framework for PHP 5 written as a C-extension, optimized for high performance.

8.  Smarty PHP

Smarty is a template engine for PHP that facilitates the separation of presentation (HTML/CSS) from application logic. The template engine has many features for presentation that would otherwise need to be developed, tested and maintained in your own application code.

9.  Laravel

Laravel is a PHP web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It works great on MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server, and SQLite. Laravel is built on top of several Symfony components, giving your application a great foundation of well-tested and reliable code.

10. Yii

Yii is a high-performance, fast, secure and highly professional PHP framework best for developing Web 2.0 applications. Yii helps you develop clean and reusable code. It follows the MVC pattern, ensuring a clear separation of logic and presentation.