Seeking simpler alternative to Laravel: CodeIgniter worth it?

@AnjanaTelaney Seems I'm in pretty much the same situation as you describe. I'm not a coder, but I've been doing a lot of things in PHP, SQL, JS, etc, over the last few years, just to get what I want done. A couple of years ago, I used Laravel to build a fair-sized site. I could do this simply by following the examples in the docs, and finding things on StackExchange, a couple of Laravel forums, and how-to articles. Laravel worked great, but there's so much stuff... Even though I could make my way using only what I needed, it felt too complicated. I don't want to "be a coder", but I do want to feel I have an understanding of what's going on.

I'm trying CodeIgniter 4 for the second time in the last two years. A basic for me was built-in authentication, and that has recently arrived with Shield. My project right now is a simple database-driven site. Basically, a CMS custom-built for what I want, that I can adjust and tweak any way I like. So far, CI seems great for this. HOWEVER, although the docs are solid, they don't quite go into the example level I'm most comfortable with, and there aren't that many current articles and tutorials.

An example of what I mean -- and this is very basic -- is using permissions with Shield, CI4's authentication/authorization package. I installed it no problem. I could register, login and out, and so on, with nice, clean forms, in a few minutes. And the docs seem quite complete. But, there are no high-level code examples for how to apply it. No basic user management page. Or how to show and hide page elements depending on the user's permissions. Standard actual use stuff. Laravel's own docs, and those of some of the key add-in packages, had most of that. I can figure all of this out, but it can take hours for me. Frustrating, because I know exactly what's needed, yet I spend time checking syntax and where to put things, when an example would do that in an instant.

That said, CI4 seems great. Not a crazy mountain of third-party dependencies. Seems just right for non-coder DIY, instead of trying to wrangle something like...WordPress or other CMS-type apps, or dealing with a huge beast like Laravel. It's only a few additions to the docs -- complete implementation examples and snippets -- from being, for me, perfect. :)