Open Source Development Kit : symfony

What's symfony?

Symfony is a web application framework for PHP projects.

It aims to speed up the creation and maintenance of web applications, and to replace the repetitive coding tasks by power, control and pleasure.

The very small number of prerequisites make symfony easy to install on any configuration; you just need Unix or Windows with a web server and PHP installed. It is compatible with almost every database system. In addition, it has a very small overhead, so the benefits of the framework don't come at the cost of an increase of hosting costs.

Using symfony is so natural and easy for people used to PHP and the design patterns of Internet applications that the learning curve is reduced to less than a day. The clean design and code readability will keep your delays short. Developers can apply agile development principles (such as DRY, KISS or the XP philosophy) and focus on applicative logic without losing time to write endless XML configuration files.

Symfony is aimed at building robust applications in an enterprise context. This means that you have full control over the configuration: from the directory structure to the foreign libraries, almost everything can be customized. To match your enterprise's development guidelines, symfony is bundled with additional tools helping you to test, debug and document your project.

Last but not least, by choosing symfony you get the benefits of an active open-source community. It is entirely free and published under the MIT license.

Symfony is sponsored by Sensio Labs, a French Web Agency well known for its innovative views on web development.


symfony 1.0
This stable version is the right choice for projects that need to be maintained for a long period of time. Released in January 2007, this release is maintained for 3 years, which means you will have support and bug fixes until January 2010. Upgrading to 1.1 is possible and many things are upgraded automatically by the upgrade task.

symfony 1.1
This stable version has been superseded by symfony 1.2 version. Release in June 2008, this version is maintained for 1 year, which means you will have support and bug fixes until June 2009.

symfony 1.2
This stable version is the right choice if you start a new project today. Released in November 2008, this release has many new features and is the best choice if you want more flexibility. This version is maintained for 1 year, which means you will have support and bug fixes until November 2009. It will be easy to upgrade to 1.3.

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symfony 1.0