Zend Framework 2 Released! Modular, Modern, Stellar!

In 2005 we announced the Zend Framework project. A great framework was the missing link in moving PHP from departmental to strategic Enterprise adoption. We had already delivered on the other necessary Enterprise requirements incl. broad database support, strong OO, XML and Web Services in PHP 5 and standard tooling via the Eclipse eco-system.

By delivering best-in-class best practices through a powerful application framework we knew we’d enable companies to scale-out their PHP development practices and as a result adopt PHP strategically, company-wide. To ensure we were on parity in maturity and completeness with other major solutions e.g. ASP.net we also ensured Zend Framework was fully integrated into our IDE(Zend Studio) and supported within our app server (Zend Server). In addition we build out certification, training and consulting services to support companies who were adopting Zend Framework.

Most important our goal was not to do this on our own. In order to be successful we knew we had to unlock the knowledge captured within the PHP community and our Enterprise partners e.g. IBM. As a result prior to announcement we recruited a variety of companies and independent software developers to help support Zend Framework out of the gate. Over the years the number of contributors to Zend Framework has exploded, and there’s no doubt that Zend Framework would not have become what it is today without the great group of contributors we have.

Zend Framework 1 was amazingly successful. Hundreds of thousands of companies are using it to build business-critical applications incl. some of the largest companies in the world. In fact it was so successful that people see Zend Framework synonymous to Zend even though we were originally best known for having created the Zend Engine (the kernel of PHP).

On the back of this great success, 2.5 years ago we chartered the Zend Framework team – under Matthew Weier O’Phinney’s leadership – to build out the next generation of Zend Framework. The charter was clear – leverage the successes, the learnings, advances in PHP 5.3 and new Web development patterns and team with the community to build the best Web application framework on the market. While our preference was to ease migration for Zend Framework 1 users we also agreed that we would break what needs breaking, in order to ensure we don’t deliver anything less than a modern A+ framework.

Today I am proud to announce that the Zend Framework community has released the much awaited GA version of Zend Framework 2. We are confident this is going to be a step function for the Web community and better enable the development of modern Web applications. The advances in Zend Framework 2 are too numerous to list but I am especially excited about its modularity, extensibility and fast growing group of contributors.

As a company we are all-in on Zend Framework 2 and plan to fully support it via our app server, IDE and service offerings. We also see additional opportunities to leverage Zend Framework 2 in supporting the creation of modern Cloud and Mobile apps and services but more on that in the coming months. One of the major themes at this year’s ZendCon will be Zend Framework 2 and we will have many opportunities for people to get up to speed with it. So do not miss this event!

I’d like to share my gratitude to everyone who has contributed to making this effort a reality with code, documentation, tools or by popularizing the project. This includes both our own internal Zend Framework team and the hundreds of community contributors. Thank you!

Now let’s build some modern Web apps!