A few weeks ago Symfony nerds launched the 2009 Symfony developers survey. It’s been great to get the communities feedback and today we are happy to publish the results. We had over 250 Symfony developers fill out the Developer Survey which was real exciting to see!.

Some interesting highlights:

  • Most developers went straight from Symfony 1.0 to 1.2 and skipped 1.1
  • Propel is the dominant ORM framework, which is interesting in light of the recent announcement that Doctrine will be the default ORM framework in Symfony 1.3 and moving forward.
  • Ubuntu is by far the most popular platfrom Symfony developers choose to run their applications on
  • The question with the most evenly spread results is “How long have you been developing Symfony applications for” (see question 6). Indicating the community has a wide range of experience with lots of people under one year experience and many over two years experience.
  • Most Symfony developers have never developed in another web application framework
  • jQuery is by far the most popular library used with Symfony
  • Eclipse PDT is the most popular IDE for Symfony developers
  • No surprises here: Most Symfony developers are from Europe (which saddens us Aussies - we need more Aussie Symfony developers!)
  • There were no developers that took the survey indicated they run Symfony applications on Oracle and MSSQL. MySQL was the most popular database used by far.
    • 2009 Symfony Developers Survey Results



    1. What version of Symfony to you currently develop with the most?
    What version of Symfony to you currently develop with the most?

    1.0.* 18%
    1.1.* 6%
    1.2.* 76%



    2.What ORM Layer do you use the most?
    What ORM Layer do you use the most?

    Propel 67%
    Doctrine 31%
    Don’t use ORM 0%
    Other 2%



    3. Where do you ask your Symfony questions?
    Where do you ask your Symfony questions?
    People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

    Official Symfony Forums 65%
    Symfony Blogs 23%
    Symfony Users Google Group 40%
    Symfony IRC Channel 19%
    External Training / Consultant 2%
    Other 14%



    4. What environment do you run most of your Symfony applications on?
    What environment do you run most of your Symfony applications on?

    Red Hat Linux 6%
    Ubuntu 39%
    Windows Server 8%
    Fedora 3%
    CentOS 8%
    Mac OS 7%
    Other *nix 13%
    Other 15%



    5. How do you install Symfony?
    How do you install Symfony?

    Pear Install 34%
    Source download 21%
    SVN checkout 40%
    SUSE package 0%
    Debian/Ubuntu package 1%
    Other 4%

    Most popular “other” value: SVN:Externals



    6. How long have you been developing Symfony applications for?
    How long have you been developing Symfony applications for?

    < 1 Year 29%
    1 Year 23%
    2 Years 21%
    2+ Years 28%



    7. What database do you use the most for your Symfony applications?
    What database do you use the most for your Symfony applications?

    MySQL 88%
    Oracle 0%
    PostgreSQL 10%
    MSSQL 0%
    DB2 0%
    SQLLite 2%
    Other 0%



    8. Have you (or do you) develop in other PHP Web Application Frameworks?
    Have you (or do you) develop in other PHP Web Application Frameworks?
    People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

    CakePHP 15%
    Zend 30%
    Seagull 1%
    CodeIgniter 14%
    eZ Components 3%
    PRADO 2%
    Seagull Project 0%
    I have not developed in other frameworks 44%
    Other 15%

    Most popular “other” Smarty & “My Own”/”Custom Built” famework.



    9. Largest Symfony application you have built is used by…
    Largest Symfony application you have built is used by...

    less than 50 Users 26%
    less than 100 Users 6%
    less than 500 Users 17%
    less than 1,000 Users 8%
    less than 2,000 Users 6%
    greater than 2,000 Users 37%



    10. What types of application do you mostly build with Symfony?
    What types of application do you mostly build with Symfony?
    People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

    CRUD Applications 76%
    SOA Based Apps (REST, SOAP…) 22%
    Integrated applications (mashups with existing systems) 32%
    Batch Processing Apps (Heaving focus on Tasks/Batch) 18%
    Workflow applications 38%
    eCommerce 29%
    Other 10%

    Popular responses for “other”: Online form-email, Intranets



    11. What other popular libraries do you use with Symfony?
    What other popular libraries do you use with Symfony?
    People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

    Prototype 41%
    script.aculo.us 35%
    jQuery 77%
    jQuery UI 49%
    YUI (Yahoo! UI) 12%
    Adobe Flex 7%
    Other 8%

    Popular responses for “other”: ExtJS, MooTools & OpenLayers



    12. How do you contribute to the Symfony project?
    How do you contribute to the Symfony project?
    People may select more than one checkbox, so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

    I use Symfony 94%
    I am a Symfony Core Developer 3%
    I report bugs 39%
    I contribute to the symfony-developers group 12%
    I answer Symfony questions (IRC, Groups, Forums…) 43%
    I blog about Symfony 25%
    I am a plugin developer 23%
    I contribute to the Symfony Wiki 11%
    I contribute to the Symfony code Snippets 8%
    Other 5%

    Popular responses for “other”: Word of mouth / Sharing experiences with others.



    13. What IDE do you use when developing in Symfony?
    What IDE do you use when developing in Symfony?

    Eclipse + PDT 34%
    Eclipse 3%
    NetBeans 18%
    Komodo 2%
    PHP Designer 0%
    NuSphere PHPEd 2%
    Zend Studio 10%
    PHPEdit 0%
    My favourite text editor (Vi, Notepad, EditPlus…) 16%
    Other 15%

    Popular responses for “other”: Aptana, Coda, Dreamweaver



    14. Where do you develop Symfony projects from?
    Where do you develop Symfony projects from?

    Asia 7%
    Africa 2%
    North America 14%
    South America 6%
    Europe 71%
    Australia 2%
    Antarctica 0%



    15. If you had to choose one reason why you use Symfony, what would it be?
    If you had to choose one reason why you use Symfony, what would it be?

    Rapid Application Development (Admin Generator…) 27%
    Ease of use for front-end development (Ajax, Forms etc..) 9%
    Scalable Framework 16%
    Standards-based framework 24%
    Project Documentation 16%
    Quick to get started 4%
    Online Community 4%
    Training and Enterprise Support 0%
    Backed by an organisation 1%



    16. If you had to pick one area to improve the Symfony framework - what would it be?
    If you had to pick one area to improve the Symfony framework - what would it be?

    Simplify the Framework 14%
    Improve documentation 24%
    Additional features to the framework 8%
    Further work on the Admin Generator 13%
    Interoperability with other frameworks 3%
    Improved plugins 16%
    Focus on scalability 15%
    Other 6%

    Popular responses for “other”:
    - Lots of responses to stream line the Forms API (multiple ways of doing things), leading to confusion.
    - Focus on performance

    There you have it! Did anything surprise you? If you have any suggestions for next years survey, let us know! For those that missed out on filling out the survey, the survey is still open.