A lot of php frameworks based on RubyOnRails emerged (Cake, Symfony, PhpOnTrax). I looked at most of them and I like what I see! I tried Cake and Symfony and really enjoyed working with both. However, I was looking for a lightweight framework. Something that I could just upload to my ftp server for medium-sized project where a full-blown framework like symfony would be to heavy.
I found what I need in CodeIgniter a lightweight mvc framework for php. It is based on RoR, like a lot of frameworks, but it requires no special server configuration, basically you just upload it to your FTP and you are ready to roll.
It doesn’t feature code generator like RoR or Symfony, but it definitly speeds up the development of web applications interacting with a database.
It features a very decent scaffolding class, and it also has a nice database abstraction layer (ActiveRecord). I encourage anyone looking for a lightweight MVC frame work for php to look at it! The support on their forum is good and there is a lot of documentation.
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I will have to have a look into CodeIgniter! Looking for the perfect framework for myself at the moment. I’ve tried Seagull and Cake properly so far and the former works more like a Content Management System than a framework :S.