Why Yii is considered one of the fastest PHP frameworks

Most of the web developers today use PHP frameworks to quickly build web applications based on various business requirements. The features and tools provided by the PHP framework make it easy for developers to add functionality to web applications and complete web development tasks without writing additional code. Web developers even have the option to choose from a wide range of full-stack and micro web frameworks for PHP. But the tools and functions provided by the individual PHP frameworks differ. Likewise, PHP frameworks also differ from each other in the category of performance and speed.

Several studies suggest that the Yii Framework is much faster than a number of web frameworks for PHP. Despite being an open source web framework, Yii simplifies and speeds up web 2.0 applications by providing a number of robust features. Because it supports the mode-view-controller architectural pattern, it is easier for developers to create and maintain PHP-based web applications by keeping the user interface and business logic layers separate. At the same time, Yii helps developers complete common web development tasks like scaffolding, caching, testing, user authentication, and role-based access management.

It even reduces the development time of custom web applications by generating base PHP code and allowing programmers to customize the code according to the precise requirements of the project. However, a large percentage of PHP programmers prefer Yii to other web frameworks due to its optimal speed and performance. According to the latest performance comparison data published on YiiFramework.com, Yii processed more requests per second (RPS) than several widely used PHP frameworks, including Symfony, Pardo, CakePHP, Zend, and CodeIgniter.

As several studies highlight, today a large percentage of visitors abandon web sites and applications that take more than 3 seconds to load. Thus, the Yii Framework makes it easy for developers to improve user experience and prevent user abandonment by speeding up websites and web applications. The developer team has already revealed the secret of Yii Framework’s excellent performance. According to the development team, Yii outperforms other PHP frameworks by making extensive use of lazy loading technique.

Unlike conventional software development patterns, the Iazy loading technique does not load the website content all at once. Instead, the lazy loading technique loads content and data only when the user accesses the specific part or section of the web page. It even requires developers to create a web page with placeholder content instead of actual content. Each time a user accesses the web page; the web browser caches the actual resources and replaces the actual resources with placeholder resources. The web browser even loads the placeholder resources only when the user accesses a specific section of the web page.

In case the user leaves the web page immediately, the web browser does not load the remaining placeholder resources. Therefore, many high-traffic websites nowadays implement lazy loading technique to reduce both load time and user abandonment. However, the lazy loading technique can be implemented in a number of ways. Yii developers implement the lazy loading technique in the most efficient way to make it faster than other widely used PHP frameworks. Also, they extensively use the lazy loading technique to make Yii process additional requests per second. At the same time, the Yii Framework also offers a number of options to speed up PHP-based web applications.

For example, it allows PHP web developers to cache and optimize PHP intermediate code using PHP APC extensions. The extension allows the web application to process more requests per second by reducing the time required to execute PHP scripts. Similarly, web developers can also increase the performance of a web application by implementing a number of caching solutions, disabling debug mode after the development process, running database queries with indexes, reducing the size of scripts, and using symbolic links to project resources. These performance optimization options along with the lazy loading technique go a long way in making Yii Framework one of the fastest web frameworks for PHP.