Survey: Which PHP Frameworks Are Used in Production in 2024

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Survey: Which PHP Frameworks Are Used in Production in 2024

The PHP developer community has once again confirmed its commitment to popular frameworks. According to an annual survey conducted among more than 5,000 PHP developers, Laravel remains the undisputed leader in production projects. However, the balance of power is shifting: Symfony and Yii are gaining momentum, while niche solutions are gradually losing ground.

We analyzed the data and prepared an overview of current trends to help you choose a tool for your next commercial project.

Survey Methodology

The study was conducted during February-March 2024 among members of professional PHP communities. Respondents answered the question: "Which PHP framework are you using in your current production project?" Only answers from developers with more than 2 years of commercial experience were considered.

Top 5 Frameworks by the Numbers

Laravel — 67% of respondents. Leadership is maintained for the fourth consecutive year thanks to ease of development, a powerful ORM (Eloquent), and a huge ecosystem of packages (Forge, Vapor, Horizon).
Symfony — 18%. Steady growth of 3% compared to 2023. Popular in the enterprise segment and among projects requiring high customization.
Yii 2 — 8%. A slight decrease (minus 1%), but the framework is still valued for its speed and built-in tooling (Gii, Active Record).
CodeIgniter — 3%. Stays afloat due to legacy and simplicity for small projects.
CakePHP, Phalcon, Zend/Laminas — a total of 4%. Fading into the background due to declining community activity.

Trends and Observations

The main surprise of the survey is the revival of Symfony projects. Developers note that Symfony 7 with PHP 8.1+ attributes makes code cleaner, and the component-based approach allows for flexible architecture assembly. The second trend is migration from Yii to Laravel: about 12% of former Yii users switched to Laravel in the past year, citing "a more friendly community and more ready-made solutions" as the main reason.

Interestingly, the share of "custom" frameworks (without using popular libraries) dropped to a record low of 2%. The market is finally standardizing — even startups prefer not to reinvent the wheel.

What This Means for Developers

If you are choosing a framework for a new project or planning a stack change, pay attention to three trends:

Laravel — a universal choice for 80% of tasks: from landing pages to complex CRMs.
Symfony — if you need flexibility and support for long-term projects (LTS versions up to 4 years).
Yii 2 — for high-load microservices where execution speed is important.

Don't forget that in 2024, knowledge of PHP 8.2+ and attributes is a mandatory minimum. Frameworks are increasingly using modern language features: typed properties, enums, and attributes.