Lumen Framework vs Zend Framework

With the increased use of digital platforms, it become necessary to build faster and more scalable platforms. Software engineers write code to build applications but developing any applications from scratch is a tedious and time-consuming process so to make this work easier, developers started using frameworks which are handy tools with necessary components for the fast and secure development of applications. Zend and Lumen are very popular frameworks of PHP. So let's compare them to find the best one.

What is Lumen Framework?

Lumen is an open-source PHP web framework, it is a micro framework that helps developers in building web applications. It is very light and does not require many resources. It was developed by Taylor Otwell for developing microservices in less amount of time. It is licensed under the MIT license.

Advantages of Lumen

• It is faster and lighter as compared to Zend.
• It contains laravel syntax so it can be easily upgraded to Laravel.
• Third-party plugins can be installed easily.
• It provides secure authorization and authentication features.

Disadvantages of Lumen

• It is unable to handle event queuing.
• It cannot create symphony components.

What is Zend Framework?

Zend is a BSD-licensed open-source PHP web framework. It is an object-oriented concept for developing websites and web applications. It offers a high-speed and pre-built library of reusable components. Due to its security and easy database access features, it became very popular among developers. It is freely available on its website.

Advantages of Zend

• It supports all the new features of HTML 5 like data pickers, form features, URLs, etc.
• It allows easy interaction with the database.
• It comes with a Zend-feed feature to read RSS feeds.
• It comes with a multi-functional feature for managing resources.

Disadvantages of Zend

• It has complex documentation which is a bit confusing.
• It does not support custom coding functionality.

Below is a table of differentiation between Lumen and Zend:

Conclusion/Summary

On comparing Zend and Lumen it is found that Lumen is more popular due to easy learning and better security features. It can be used to make simple as well as complex applications. On the other hand, Zend is also good for developing small and medium web applications. One can choose among the two depending on the project requirements.