ZF LogoAfter more than a year of development, the long awaited stable release of Zend Framework is finally here. Zend Framework is a fully object-oriented PHP 5 class library that was carefully designed to be modular and flexible. It includes components for authentication & authorization, internationalization, efficient database access, and utilities for consuming and exposing web services, among many other things. Broadly stated, the project’s goal is to “provide the most commonly required 90% of the value you need… leaving you the ability to custom build that last 10% to meet your specific business needs.”

Unlike other PHP frameworks, applications need not include the framework’s entire code base in order to make use of one or two components. Each component is more or less independent of the rest of the framework, allowing developers to include the functionality they need without adding things they don’t. Thus, you may find Zend Framework useful even if your project is based on one of the many other PHP frameworks or if you’re going framework free.

Some high-level features of the Zend Framework include:

  • Authentication & Authorization - sophisticated pattern-oriented authentication adapters and role-based access control that can easily be extended to meet your specific needs
  • Search - a native PHP port of the powerful Apache Lucene search engine
  • Model-View-Controller - controller and view components, along with a lightweight database access layer, provide the infrastructure necessary for a MVC website
  • Syndication - simple solutions for consuming and providing RSS and Atom feeds, along with utilities for feed discovery
  • AJAX - easily convert PHP structures into JSON and vice-versa

The project’s roughly 250 contributors have managed to build an excellent framework with an active support community. Judging from the number of early adopters who have been using the product since it was in early beta, the stable release of Zend Framework is sure to be a great success.