CodeIgniter vs Play: What are the differences?
Developers describe CodeIgniter as "A Fully Baked PHP Framework". CodeIgniter is a proven, agile & open PHP web application framework with a small footprint. It is powering the next generation of web apps. On the other hand, Play is detailed as "The High Velocity Web Framework For Java and Scala". Play Framework makes it easy to build web applications with Java & Scala. Play is based on a lightweight, stateless, web-friendly architecture. Built on Akka, Play provides predictable and minimal resource consumption (CPU, memory, threads) for highly-scalable applications.
CodeIgniter and Play can be categorized as "Frameworks (Full Stack)" tools.
"Mvc", "Easy setup" and "Open source" are the key factors why developers consider CodeIgniter; whereas "Scala", "Web-friendly architecture" and "Built on akka" are the primary reasons why Play is favored.
CodeIgniter and Play are both open source tools. It seems that CodeIgniter with 17.4K GitHub stars and 7.72K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Play with 11.2K GitHub stars and 3.77K GitHub forks.
Buffer, Accenture, and Ola are some of the popular companies that use CodeIgniter, whereas Play is used by Coursera, Zalando, and Keen. CodeIgniter has a broader approval, being mentioned in 261 company stacks & 105 developers stacks; compared to Play, which is listed in 112 company stacks and 47 developer stacks.