Why Codeigniter is better than laravel?

Even i sometimes get dilemma on this too. Its hard to compare and choose between these two frameworks since they both pretty capable to make your web application rise to the top and stable.

I read many articles that i can find about laravel vs codeigniter. Most of the answer and opinion are point to the same thing.

From my point of view, the simple words that i can give to you or anyone that read this post is that:

Laravel performs a lot of magic and keep the "user convenience" style while,
Codeigniter only gives you a small footprint to get you started building your web application. (which is exactly like it is written on the docs)

Now this seems a little bit general in terms but i'm sure you get the idea a bit on how both framework works.

Laravel uses a lot of command artisan almost for anything such as migrates, seeding, faker(popular nowadays), creating the model view controller component, up and down servers, job scheduling and a lot more. You can get a lot of thing with only simple command line. Most of your works done just by using this "artisan" thing which is make your life easy and convenience. In addition, Laravel uses Eloquent Relationship Model which also pretty much convenience since you won't see something like (SELECT * FROM tables) anymore.(Thank god it have query builder & raw sql as well) This is the famous answers you get when you ask about the advantage of laravel. They tend to drive you to this point because it is the biggest advantage of Laravel which makes your life easier (again. )No more seeing a whole SQL query. Convenience is it?  I won't talk about coding and stuff since to me they are pretty much the same structure since both are MVC.


How about Codeigniter?
Only gives you small footprint, and mostly back to basic of PHP. If you understand a lot of natives PHP, then Codeigniter would be piece of cheese to you. Don't get me wrong, even beginners find it easier to build web application with Codeigniter, but seems to me codeigniter won't take you far from native PHP which is good to me. 
However No ORM, No Command Line, No Artisan. What the? Then my life will be disaster with codeigniter? Because no convenience stuff?

Well from here and out i will tell you why i choose Codeigniter over Laravel (CI > Laravel).
For me, whatever you do, whatever project you do, whatever framework or language you use, the basic thing is that you need is to 

1)Understand what are you trying to achieve (pre)
2)Understand how you are trying to achieve (mid)
3)Understand what happen when it is achieved (post)

That's it. My personal opinion why i choose codeigniter is that:
1) I don't want whole bloated unnecessary things inside my project without even before i (the owner of the project) get started to code.  Small footprint is enough for me to get started which is like CI.

2) I need to know what happen mostly inside my web apps. I don't want everything should be done "magically" without me knowing. It would be disaster if you keep relying on framework and not relying your head most of the time. Use the gift we have and not the framework gave you.

3) Don't stay far away from native PHP. Sometimes this point can get into a little sensitive. For me, if we think back, without PHP there will be no these whole forsaken framework. However the opposite of this statement are valid isn't it? So which is the father of all? That you should focus on learning and strive into the core rather than framework. Some might says, you do not need to reinvent the wheel which is correct if you see from certain point of view. However, some mistakenly says that statement when in fact we just want to learn about the core of the language itself. 
This point seems out of topic isn't it?  . Well mainly i was pointed on how laravel seems to focus on user convenience rather than learning which of course makes life easier but by creating a framework that make us forget about PHP? No way.


As you can see, Codeigniter which is pretty much suitable for people like me. Just give me to get started and don't went overboard by include everything or doing something behind my back or in front of me without me knowing it. I find it pretty annoying. Some might ask, why not develop without framework then? I can but building web appllication without framework sometimes i find it time consuming to organize your file structure. Which is why i need codeigniter comes to the rescue. Even if you build your own framework just to support MVC module, depends on the person knowledge exactly. I am not an expert so i need framework like CI.

I hope i answers some of your questions since me too face the same dilemma like you. This is just personal opinion and nothing more. Actually the topic should be User Convenience vs Learning. You can choose which path you gonna take.

Never stop learning and never stop relying on your head because someday, laravel gonna be like codeigniter someday which is hated for century. Just like currently jQuery being hated right now and angular/react/vue rise to the top. Someday, those 3 gonna face the same fate like jQuery. The growth of technology would never stop and so nothing is permanent.