StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Frameworks
  5. CodeIgniter vs MEAN

CodeIgniter vs MEAN

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

MEAN
MEAN
Stacks337
Followers617
Votes594
GitHub Stars12.1K
Forks3.4K
CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter
Stacks3.2K
Followers1.5K
Votes466

CodeIgniter vs MEAN: What are the differences?

Key differences between CodeIgniter and MEAN

CodeIgniter and MEAN are both popular frameworks used for web development, but they have some key differences. Here are the main points of distinction:

  1. Language and Architecture: CodeIgniter is a PHP-based framework, whereas MEAN is a JavaScript stack that consists of MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, and Node.js. CodeIgniter follows a server-side architecture, while MEAN follows a full-stack JavaScript architecture.

  2. Scalability and Performance: CodeIgniter is known for its outstanding performance and scalability. It is a lightweight framework that allows for faster loading times and efficient caching. On the other hand, MEAN is also known for its scalability, as it utilizes Node.js for server-side operations, which enables handling of a large number of concurrent connections.

  3. Database Support: CodeIgniter supports various databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. It provides an easy-to-use database abstraction layer that allows developers to switch between different databases seamlessly. In contrast, MEAN is predominantly focused on MongoDB, a NoSQL database, but it can integrate with other databases as well.

  4. Frontend Development: CodeIgniter primarily relies on server-side rendering and works well with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It does not have a built-in frontend framework. On the other hand, MEAN includes AngularJS as its frontend framework, which provides robust features for building dynamic and responsive web applications.

  5. Learning Curve and Community Support: CodeIgniter has been around for a longer time and has a well-established community. It has extensive documentation and a large number of plugins and libraries available. MEAN, although newer, also has a growing community and many resources available, but it may require a steeper learning curve, especially for developers who are new to JavaScript.

  6. Development Speed and Ease of Use: CodeIgniter is known for its simplicity and ease of use, making it a great choice for beginners. It has a small footprint, requires minimal setup, and offers a straightforward development process. MEAN, being a more complex stack, may take longer to set up and configure, but once familiarized, it provides powerful tools and features that can expedite development.

In summary, CodeIgniter is a PHP-based framework focused on simplicity, performance, and scalability, while MEAN is a JavaScript stack that provides a full-stack JavaScript development environment, with emphasis on real-time and highly scalable applications.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Advice on MEAN, CodeIgniter

A
A

Aug 3, 2021

Needs adviceonMySQLMySQLLaravelLaravelVue.jsVue.js

I need to build a web application plus android and IOS apps for an enterprise, like an e-commerce portal. It will have intensive use of MySQL to display thousands (40-50k) of live product information in an interactive table (searchable, filterable), live delivery tracking. It has to be secure, as it will handle information on customers, sales, inventory. Here is the technology stack: Backend: Laravel 7 Frondend: Vue.js, React or AngularJS?

Need help deciding technology stack. Thanks.

300k views300k
Comments
Michael
Michael

Developer at Fleet-Nomics

Sep 11, 2022

Needs adviceonBubbleBubbleCodeIgniterCodeIgniterCakePHPCakePHP

Hi all, I need to create a simple IoT interface application that connects the end device API with a GeoTab API. I am considering using Bubble due to its simple interface and configuration tools, but I fear it's too simple. We will want to add features and new devices as we grow - I was thinking of using CodeIgniter or CakePHP on a hosted site for the application. Must support JCOM encoding between the two APIs and there is no need for a separate interface as GeoTab already has one; we are just connecting and pushing data. Thoughts?

47.4k views47.4k
Comments
Ajeet
Ajeet

Dec 16, 2019

Needs advice

Hi, We are thinking to rebuild a website and need your suggestion on which platform to choose from NodeJs, Laravel & CodeIgnitor. Since it's an education base website and there will be multiple functionalities like the use of graphics, video, animation and off-course forms for lead generation. Please advise us which tool to use to build the website considering load-time, server security, code vulnerability, etc.

216k views216k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

MEAN
MEAN
CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter

MEAN (Mongo, Express, Angular, Node) is a boilerplate that provides a nice starting point for MongoDB, Node.js, Express, and AngularJS based applications. It is designed to give you a quick and organized way to start developing MEAN based web apps with useful modules like Mongoose and Passport pre-bundled and configured.

CodeIgniter is a proven, agile & open PHP web application framework with a small footprint. It is powering the next generation of web apps.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
12.1K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
3.4K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
337
Stacks
3.2K
Followers
617
Followers
1.5K
Votes
594
Votes
466
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 86
    Javascript
  • 62
    Easy
  • 58
    Nosql
  • 52
    Great community
  • 50
    Mongoose
Pros
  • 88
    Mvc
  • 76
    Easy setup
  • 70
    Open source
  • 62
    Well documented
  • 36
    Community support
Cons
  • 6
    No ORM
  • 1
    No CLI
Integrations
MongoDB
MongoDB
Node.js
Node.js
ExpressJS
ExpressJS
AngularJS
AngularJS
PHP
PHP

What are some alternatives to MEAN, CodeIgniter?

Node.js

Node.js

Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Rails

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Laravel

Laravel

It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.

.NET

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

Symfony

Symfony

It is written with speed and flexibility in mind. It allows developers to build better and easy to maintain websites with PHP..

Spring

Spring

A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Spring Boot

Spring Boot

Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based Applications that you can "just run". We take an opinionated view of the Spring platform and third-party libraries so you can get started with minimum fuss. Most Spring Boot applications need very little Spring configuration.

Android SDK

Android SDK

Android provides a rich application framework that allows you to build innovative apps and games for mobile devices in a Java language environment.

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap
Materialize

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Laravel
Django

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap
Foundation

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js
Spring Boot

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Liquibase
Flyway

Flyway vs Liquibase