Please which php framework will you recommend and why?
Drupal
Codeigniter
CakePhp
Zend
monsieur Bee-B I'm not responsible, are you?

Remove drupal - drupal is cheating - because it is a cms that has a framework - that is why wikipedia calls it - a content management framework.
Well, there is no one single framework that is best for all kinda jobs, all of them have their strengths and weaknesses.

For me, i will chose drupal / cakePHP - I find them easy to use.

CakePHP

Well dhtml said it ' all of them have there strong point and weakness'. In my own view if you are a starter i wud have advice you going for CODEIGNITER, its speed is *2 beta dan cakePhp. But in verbosity cakephp is better. Now zend. Well i see zend as an extra underneccasry verbose framework. That loads whats not needed. Thats just one thing i dont like with it. Also zend framework documentation is rubbish. Unlike codeigniter with a user friendly documentation. And zend speed is not as codeigniter mind you. In my own opinion i wud have said if you need a framework with verbosity and speed go for YII. If you need simplicity aand straight to the core approach go for codeigniter if you need medium weight go for cakephp. If you need unneccesary verbosity loading unimportant things and just increasing complexity go for zend. If you need something outta the OOP CIRCLE go for drupal. But mind you drupal uses a PAC arrangement structure and NOT MVC. PAC is similar to MVC. PAC = PRESENTATION ABSTRACTION and CONTROL, MVC = model View controller. Also i think you should consider lookin into an HMVC framework. It might be of help. Thanks

YModulus is right i won't recommend ZF now because ZF1 is complicated and in some months time ZF2 will take over solving most of the issues, Yii is not a bad framework CakePHP can't say much about it, but at least you must have a good solid OOP and a few design patterns but not a prerequisite. Zend is not that complex as you percieve it to be, its just hard getting wraped around the documentation. i still use it for projects and its serves me well, but for now Yii is a good catch.

also HMVC in Zend is simply known as Modules also. just thot i add that

@YModulus if i were to learn Yii on the side, is the transition any different since u have Zend Experience i won't mind your input thanks , the more FW the better.

CakePHP
is the world's greatest PHP framework.

Great Contribution, @talk2hb1 you are always asking questions.
Why are you not responsible? does it mean you Irresponsible?

Thanks Everyone, really helpful,
@codelord are you responsible?,
This NLand plz lets wash our dirty linen on FB, you runt,

Pls let's keep this thread friendly as its an educational thread no need for insults. thanks

Pc guru read this link. http://www.sheldmandu.com/php/php-mvc-frameworks/yii-vs-zend-vs-code-igniter-compared

Yii, might gonna have to look into Yii this week, am sure my ZF knowledge should scale me through since everyone says Zend is harder than Yii, but still ZF2 is still something am looking forward too, The server am building the Zend for has a PHP Accelerator so i can tap into that ZF1 but to be frank i know Zend is quite slow,because it reads lots of settings from application.ini, but ZF2 uses the configuration of array like Yii, i like the fact that Yii also is integrated with Dojo too, thats a plus for me.

Now pc guru. Let me say this and any one that doubt it should argue with me.

1. you can use zend in YII but not the reverse.
2. You can use Joomla in Yii. See i was so shocked when i saw some developers doing this importing joomla CORE i repeat CORE FILES INTO YII. i dont know how to do it but men i cut respect.
3. you can use any THIRD PARTY CODE IN YII, WORDPRESS NAME THEM. YOU CAN EVEN USE ZEND MODEL HAVE FORGOTTEN the name cuz i have thrown away zend for a long time.
4. yii has plugins like madt infact YII PLUGINS MADE MADE ME TAG YII LIKE DHTML SAID A CHEAT. A CMF. anythin you want to do see the plugin directory all is done.
5.With YII YOU CAN USE THE AUTO GENERATE CODE FEATURE ALL YOU DO IS LOG INTO A PANEL. THIS PANEL COMES WITH YII ITS A GUI INTERFACE when you log in just follow instructions and generate all code to build your website with ease.

5. documentation. O my god!!! Yii uses the php style of documentation IF THEY EXPLAIN CONTROLLER U WILL SEE TONS OF COMMENT. Also there documentation are up to date always updated unlike ZEND.
6. SPEED. now i can give you a detailed benchmark on this. Few days ago i benchmarked all this application KOHANA, CODEIGNITER, YII, ZEND, CAKE and Symfony. i was not alone we are group 5 in number who decided to test all of this and see speed. Now we ported a 3 page WEBSITE its NAIRALIST CLONE. DOU WE DIDNT FINISH THE PROJECT. we tested this and i can tell you that YII USED 4minutes to load THE WHOLE WEBSITE. CODE IGNITER proved my friend TOM WRONG. D tin fall him hand infact if a big project pls dont use codeigniter if na normal small project use codeigniter. now KOHANA USED 8MINUTES this was outrageous but i understand why kohana uses unnecasary blank files and folder so annoyin. Zend used 6.002 seconds. Cake was behind zend dou cant recall d time. But this were live test. But we tested a normal page presentation without database codeigniter was fastest YII AND ZEND RUNNER UP. note all this test were done december last year.

6. Now this is what made yii fast in big projects. You can import a yii controller method into another. This makes sense in case of cms. Like $this->is-user-log-in(); but codeigniter and zend we cudnt achieve this easily we hacked codeigniter core zend we didn touch cake its just too not good.

Now my finall test today i have dropped zend, symfony(too verbose but THATS THE FRAMEWORK YAHOO uses confirmed). YII I HEARD ONE TIME BANK OF AMERICA WANTED USIN THIS DIDNT KNOW HOW IT ENDED UP.
7. CONFIGURATION.
With zend you will use all those xml ini before its parsed it takes time. With YII SO EASY AN ARRAY. unique method of naming file the allow you use you file anyhow and still autoload it but it shud not start with C cuz all yii files start with c.
8. javasript frameworks JQUERY.
I KNOW U ARE A DOJO AND JSCRIPT FRAMEWORK FREAK. i wont say anything please just ask the community on this and find out for yourself. You will stop usin all those unnecasry bundles of file in zend (o gosh i hate that framework) u just use what u need in yii. Like a normal minimal website. Oooo lala.
DISCLAIMER:: AM NOT A HARD CORE YII USER naaaaa. I am codeigniter product. but in the next few days am rolling over to YII NO LOOK BACK. IF U ARE A CODEIGNITER USER i can tell u 999999999 tins yii does codeigniter wont. Do u know codeigniter dont use autoloadin has they claimed? U dont blive me? Check your codeigniter core for loader.php u will see where codeigniter uses foreach on all autoload array of libraries helpers and so. I was just too shock. Let the framework story go on next ,

@YModulus "JavaScript Framework Freak" LOL i spent 2 years on Pure JavaScript cuz when i was using Jquery and i couldn't understand more core stuff, after JS knowledge i used jquery and i loved it till to the point i felt jquery couldn't do advanced stuff for me which is why i can understand my way around Dojo because of JS knowledge same goes to PHP, i know PHP very well without framework but u're not the only person saying Yii is fast, a fellow coder too told me, and if stuff like that comes from his mouth, then it must be worth it, am downloading Yii and will try to build a simple Website who knows i can always use Yii and Zend for separate purposes, but in Zend you can import another controller in another method from another class, there is the $this->_forward(controller,action,module,param); though documentation is an important factor for me with Zend i google almost stuff i need to implement especially the Zend_Layout aspect. using Joomla in Yii pls i'd rather not Joomla is crap imho but Wordpress now that's something am eager to see, never liked CakePHP watching my diabetes  . does Yii have downloadable offline documentation.

Check out flexiacms a cms powered by yii. It does tins WORDPRESS, JOOMLA (i hate dis pple dey make echo 'helloworld' like 90 pages ), DRUPAL does not in content editing. and DISCLAIMER IF YOU SAY ZEND IS OLDER THAN YII THEN THATS NOT A REASONABLE ARGUEMENT CUZ THE WRITER OF YII IS THE FOUNDER OF PRADO FRAMEWORK. PRADO IS 4-5YEARS OLDER THAN ZEND IT WAS DROPPED BECAUSE HE HAD TO CHANGE THE ARCHITECTURE TO MAKE IT LEAN AND POWERFUL. So dont just say anything. Am ready. remember YII HAS NO RUBBISH HACK like codeigniter that uses 3 good HACKS JUST TO ECHO MEMORY LIMIT. oo rubbish. Yii says if u dont use 5.1 and above dont use me. Codeigniter says if you use php 2.0 u can use me gosh. also YII COMES WITH A BLOG SO BRO ITS EASY TO CUSTOMISE IT AND LEARN. The blog uses a database but not my mysql this baffles me cuz i cant see a flat file db. I just cant see the db. codeigniter na yawaa. Abeg. Another tin. Make we talk. Codeigniter has no dojo, jquery support all na wash.

downloaded the guides doc and FW, will use this week to go into it, lemme go watch Real kick some arse hopefully.

^^^IyanPHP - did you develop that one?