Symfony
Hacker ApprovedRanked 17 of 63 web frameworks by recommenders
Mature PHP framework with reusable components and predictable releases, recommended for solid long-term projects. Caveat: a learning curve for newcomers.
Mature PHP framework with reusable components and predictable releases, recommended for solid long-term projects. Caveat: a learning curve for newcomers.
24 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 20
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 20 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Keeps PHP relevant as ecosystem anchor
“Symfony is singlehandedly keeping PHP relevant, to the point that every other framework depends on its packages”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Laravel raised money and now injects ads directly into your agent” “You may want to check Symfony and its ecosystem and what is being cooked outside Laravel.”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “PHP is Dead (and AI is to blame)” Solid, flexible framework to build on
“Plus Symfony is quite flexible on how you want to organize your code.”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Returning to Rails in 2026” “the Symfony framework is solid and easy to build on”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “Drupal is now light-years ahead of its reputation” Predictable releases and breaking changes
“a popular framework with planned depreciations and releases the ecosystem tends to sync fairly well”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “PHP 8.5” “Clear release timelines and how breaking changes are introduced.”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Laravel raised money and now injects ads directly into your agent” Independently usable components
“each of its components can be pulled in individually with no bearing on the architecture of your application”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Why I Created phpc.tv” “I'm spoiled by the Symfony framework which has a robust Secrets Component”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Where .env Went Wrong”
Other web frameworks people recommend
The four most recommended other web frameworks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby on Rails | 337 | 145 | 70% | 12 | 14 yrs38 owners | Approved |
| Django | 277 | 97 | 74% | 12 | 15 yrs38 owners | Approved |
| Next.js | 127 | 256 | 33% | 12 | 3 yrs6 owners | — |
| Phoenix Framework | 85 | 11 | 89% | 12 | 8 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| SymfonyThis page | 20 | 4 | 83% | 10 | — | Approved |
What people said
19 of the 24 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the Symfony framework is solid and easy to build on”
“Symphony and the likes are legitimately dotnet-type”
“PHP with Symfony or Laravel”
“You may want to check Symfony and its ecosystem and what is being cooked outside Laravel.”
“ai coding is the new Symfony w/ bootstrap theme hype cycle”
“I'm spoiled by the Symfony framework which has a robust Secrets Component”
“batteries included PHP frameworks like Symfony or Cake”
“each of its components can be pulled in individually with no bearing on the architecture of your application”
“Symfony scales better than Laravel when you need to go big over the long term.”
“Symfony is singlehandedly keeping PHP relevant, to the point that every other framework depends on its packages”
“Clear release timelines and how breaking changes are introduced.”
“Plus Symfony is quite flexible on how you want to organize your code.”
“they became messy and I was unsure where goes what”
“Every backend framework, be it dotnet or Symphony or Rails, has a concept of components”
“I won't allow the great Symfony to be erased from history”
“And symfony, also a PHP framework, is not far from that.”
“a popular framework with planned depreciations and releases the ecosystem tends to sync fairly well”
“look at a modern Symfony codebase. You'll find monads, functional programming, etc”
“Was definitely interesting and a learning curve.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.