What is CakePHP? Why use it?¶

CakePHP is a free, open-source, rapid development framework for PHP. It’s a foundational structure for programmers to create web applications. Our primary goal is to enable you to work in a structured and rapid manner–without loss of flexibility.

CakePHP takes the monotony out of web development. It provides you with all the tools you need to get started coding and what you need to get done: the logic specific to your application. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time you begin a new project, check out a copy of CakePHP and get started with the logic of your application.

CakePHP has an active developer team and community, bringing great value to the project. In addition to keeping you from wheel-reinventing, using CakePHP means your application’s core is well tested and is being constantly improved.

Here’s a quick list of features you’ll enjoy when using CakePHP:

• Active, friendly Official CakePHP Forum

• Flexible licensing

• Compatible with versions PHP 5.2.8 and greater

• Integrated CRUD for database interaction

• Application scaffolding

• Code generation

• MVC architecture

• Request dispatcher with clean, custom URLs and routes

• Built-in validation

• Fast and flexible templating (PHP syntax, with helpers)

• View helpers for AJAX, JavaScript, HTML forms and more

• Email, cookie, security, session, and request handling Components

• Flexible ACL

• Data sanitization

• Flexible caching

• Localization

• Works from any web site directory, with little to no Apache configuration involved