Why is Code Igniter not recommended?

I began working with CI way back in the day. The days of cake. I don't know if you recall cake but it was fairly similar to CI at the time. The entire MVC revolution had just started. Fast forward to 2020 and CI is still a framework that people use and care about. Granted Laravel, and Symfony are also great frameworks. That being said you obviously have some concern. I have always have used my intuition when it comes to making choices like this. You really sound like you are looking for reasons not to use CI. If you truly believe in those reasons than don't use it. That being said you sound mostly like you want to use CI. Every framework, language, cloud service, etc has their disadvantages and advantages. Pick something and go with it. Don't come on a forum like this and look for reasons not to use the software. If you are going to find reasons not to use the software do it yourself.