I'm about to start a new website and have the opportunity to choose whatever framework I like. I was wondering what folks might think is the best framework to be using in 2013? I'm curious both from a business perspective (e.g., which framework is "hot" in the sense that there is lots of work for it) and also from a features/functionality perspective. I would also like to avoid any framework in imminent danger of being phased out.

Yes, I did google this. Some of the top results leave a lot to be desired. Call me linguo-centric, but I find it hard to trust an article written in broken English promoting a framework of which I have never heard.

    I happen to be a fan of CI, ZF and Symphony. I think they are all good, and popular, but I wouldn't say there is more work in one or the other (at least not in the areas I've been looking, most don't even specify a framework in the posting and might not use one). I know Lithium is built on 5.3 so it won't have backwards support (which is great for NEW projects) but I have no real experience with it.

      Thanks for your input. From what I can tell, this google trends graph suggests there's a lot of interest in code igniter relative to ZF and symfony:
      http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=symfony%2C%20codeigniter%2C%20zend%20framework&cmpt=q

      Joomla dwarfs all of them and drupal too, but both Joomla and Drupal are showing a downward trend in interest. I've spoken to some devs who work on Joomla and they say they are working hard to make Joomla viable as a framework and move the CMS features to a module/plugin.

        Lithium look promising, but I'm not sure it's gained enough traction yet to be something I would want to depend on for anything critical.

          You can always design your own framework, I am actually doing one myself. It may be time consuming, but trust me after this process is complete you will get a full understanding of MVC, ORM and object oriented programming/design. You may not have this choice if you are working for a company, but if you are actually developing your own software or with a bunch of friends, Id recommend this.

            Might look at laravel or kohana. I haven't used them personally, but they're newer projects that seem to have a lot of energy; they're on git and well-documented. I've peeked and they look nice.

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