Phalcon vs Zend Framework: What are the differences?

Developers describe Phalcon as "Web framework delivered as a C-extension for PHP". Phalcon is a web framework implemented as a C extension offering high performance and lower resource consumption. On the other hand, Zend Framework is detailed as "An open source, object-oriented web application framework implemented in PHP 5". Zend Framework 2 is an open source framework for developing web applications and services using PHP 5.3+. Zend Framework 2 uses 100% object-oriented code and utilises most of the new features of PHP 5.3, namely namespaces, late static binding, lambda functions and closures.

Phalcon and Zend Framework can be categorized as "Frameworks (Full Stack)" tools.

"Fast" is the primary reason why developers consider Phalcon over the competitors, whereas "Open source" was stated as the key factor in picking Zend Framework.

Phalcon and Zend Framework are both open source tools. It seems that Phalcon with 9.74K GitHub stars and 1.78K forks on GitHub has more adoption than Zend Framework with 5.71K GitHub stars and 2.87K GitHub forks.

Webedia, Scandlearn, and MV Labs are some of the popular companies that use Zend Framework, whereas Phalcon is used by Sellsuki, Learning Data, and Ringostat. Zend Framework has a broader approval, being mentioned in 40 company stacks & 22 developers stacks; compared to Phalcon, which is listed in 28 company stacks and 15 developer stacks.