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Symfony
PHP web application framework for MVC applications

Symfony is a free and open-source PHP web application framework and a set of reusable PHP component libraries. It was published as free software on October 18, 2005, and released under the MIT License.

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Goal

Symfony aims to speed up the creation and maintenance of web applications and to replace repetitive coding tasks. It's also aimed at building robust applications in an enterprise context, and aims to give developers full control over the configuration: from the directory structure to third-party libraries, almost everything can be customized.1 To match enterprise development guidelines, Symfony is bundled with additional tools to help developers test, debug and document projects.2

Symfony has a low performance overhead used with a bytecode cache.

Technical

Symfony was heavily inspired by the Spring Framework.34

It makes heavy use of existing PHP open-source projects as part of the framework, including:

Symfony also makes use of its own components, which are freely available on the Symfony Components site for various other projects:

  • Symfony YAML, a YAML parser based upon Spyc
  • Symfony Event Dispatcher
  • Symfony Dependency Injector, a dependency injector
  • Symfony Templating, a templating engine

Sponsors

Symfony is sponsored by SensioLabs, a French software developer and professional services provider.5 The first name was Sensio Framework,6 and all classes were therefore prefixed with sf. Later on when it was decided to launch it as open-source framework, the brainstorming resulted in the name symfony (being renamed to Symfony from version 2 and on), which matches the existing theme and class name prefixes.7

Real-world usage

  • Symfony is used by the open-source Q&A service Askeet and many more applications, including Delicious website.8
  • At one time it was used for 20 million users of Yahoo! Bookmarks.9
  • As of February 2009, Dailymotion.com has ported part of its code to use Symfony, and is continuing the transition.10
  • Symfony is used by OpenSky, a social shopping platform, and the Symfony framework is also used by the massively multiplayer online browser game eRepublik, and by the content management framework eZ Publish in version 5.11
  • Drupal 8, phpBB and a number of other large applications have incorporated components of Symfony.1213
  • Symfony is also used by Meetic, one of the largest online dating platforms in the world, on most of its websites for implementing its business logic in the backend.14
  • Symfony components are also used in other web application frameworks including Laravel, which is another full-stack framework, and Silex, which is a microframework.15
  • Vogue Paris's website is also built on the Symfony framework16

Symfony's own website has a comprehensive list of projects using Symfony and a showcase of websites built with Symfony.17

Releases

Symfony manages its releases through a time-based model; a new Symfony release comes out every six months: one in May and one in November. This release process has been adopted as of Symfony 2.2, and all the "rules" explained in this document must be strictly followed as of Symfony 2.4.

The standard version of Symfony is maintained for eight months, whereas long-term support (LTS) versions are supported for three years. A new LTS release is published biennially.18

The latest stable release is version 7.3 and current LTS release is version 6.4.19

ColorMeaning
RedRelease no longer supported
Ambersecurity fixes only
GreenRelease still supported
BlueFuture release
VersionRelease dateSupportPHP versionEnd of maintenanceNotes
1.0January 2007Three years≥ 5.0January 2010
1.1June 2008One year≥ 5.1June 2009Security-related patches were applied until June 2010
1.2December 2008One year≥ 5.2November 2009
1.3November 2009One year≥ 5.2.4November 2010
1.4November 2009Three years≥ 5.2.4November 2012LTS version. 1.4 is identical to 1.3, but it does not support the 1.3 deprecated features.20
2.021July 201122≥ 5.3.2March 2013Last 2.0.x release was Symfony 2.0.2523
2.124September 2012Eight months≥ 5.3.3June 2013More components are part of the stable API.
2.2March 2013Eight months≥ 5.3.3November 2013Various new features.25
2.3June 2013Three years≥ 5.3.3May 2016The first LTS release, only three months development, normally six months.26
2.4November 2013Eight months≥ 5.3.3July 2014The first 2.x branch release with complete backwards compatibility.27
2.5May 2014Eight months≥ 5.3.3January 2015
2.6November 2014Eight months≥ 5.3.3July 2015
2.7May 2015Three years≥ 5.3.9May 2018LTS release.
2.8November 2015Three years≥ 5.3.9November 2018LTS release.
3.0November 2015Eight months≥ 5.5.9July 2016
3.1May 2016Eight months≥ 5.5.9January 2017
3.2November 2016Eight months≥ 5.5.9July 2017
3.3June 2017Eight months≥ 5.5.9January 2018
3.4November 2017Three years≥ 5.5.9November 2020LTS release.
4.0November 2017Eight months≥ 7.1.328July 2018Dropping support for HHVM29
4.1May 2018Eight months≥ 7.1.3January 2019
4.2November 2018Eight months≥ 7.1.3July 2019
4.3May 2019Eight months≥ 7.1.3January 2020
4.4November 2019Three years≥ 7.1.3November 2022LTS release.30
5.0November 2019Eight months≥ 7.2.5July 2020Live released by Fabien Potencier during his Keynote at SymfonyCon Amsterdam (11/21/19).31
5.1May 2020Eight months≥ 7.2.5January 2021
5.2November 2020Eight months≥ 7.2.5July 202132
5.3May 2021Eight months≥ 7.2.5January 2022Stable release.33
5.4November 2021Three years≥ 7.2.5November 2024LTS release.34
6.0November 2021Eight months≥ 8.0.2January 202335 Maintenance period extended by six months.36
6.1May 2022Eight months≥ 8.1January 202337
6.2November 2022Eight months≥ 8.1July 202338
6.3May 2023Eight months≥ 8.1January 202439
6.4November 2023Three years≥ 8.1November 2027LTS release.40
7.0November 2023Eight months≥ 8.2July 202441
7.1May 2024Eight months≥ 8.2January 202542
7.2November 2024Eight months≥ 8.2July 202543
7.3May 2025Eight months≥ 8.2January 202644

See also

  • Free and open-source software portal

Further reading

  • Potencier, Fabien. (2022). Symfony 6: The Fast Track. Leanpub.
  • Potencier, Fabien and Zaninotto, François. (2007). The Definitive Guide to symfony. Apress. ISBN 1-59059-786-9.
  • Potencier, Fabien. (2009). Practical symfony (2009). Sensio Labs Books. Doctrine edition, ISBN 978-2-918390-06-0, Propel edition, 978-2918390077, and Spanish edition available on lulu.com.
  • Fabien Potencier, Hugo Hamon: Symfony, Mieux développer en PHP avec symfony 1.2 et Doctrine, Eyrolles 2009, ISBN 978-2-212-12494-1, French
  • Tim Bowler, Wojciech Bancer (2009). Symfony 1.3 Web Application Development, Packt. ISBN 978-1-84719-456-5.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Symfony.

References

  1. "Symfony explained to a developer". https://symfony.com/explained-to-a-developer ↩

  2. "Profiler - Symfony". https://symfony.com/doc/current/profiler.html ↩

  3. High Performance PHP Framework for Web Development - Symfony. Symfony-reloaded.org. Retrieved on 2014-05-30. http://symfony-reloaded.org/ ↩

  4. "Open-Source cross-pollination (Symfony Blog)". symfony.com. Retrieved 2020-06-06. https://symfony.com/blog/open-source-cross-pollination ↩

  5. Learn symfony: A Beginner's Tutorial http://www.sitepoint.com/print/symfony-beginners-tutorial ↩

  6. Symfony framework forum: General discussion => New symfony tagline brainstorming Archived 2008-12-22 at the Wayback Machine http://www.symfony-project.org/forum/index.php/mv/msg/906/3674/#msg_3674 ↩

  7. Comments by Sensio Owner Archived 2008-12-22 at the Wayback Machine http://www.symfony-project.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&&th=906&goto=3674#msg_3674 ↩

  8. Symfony Blog - Delicious Preview built with symfony http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2007/10/02/delicious-preview-built-with-symfony ↩

  9. Symfony Blog - Yahoo! Bookmarks uses symfony http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2006/10/28/yahoo-bookmarks-uses-symfony ↩

  10. Symfony Blog - Dailymotion, powered by symfony http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2009/02/18/dailymotion-powered-by-symfony ↩

  11. Symfony2 meets eZ Publish 5. Symfony (2012-07-02). Retrieved on 2014-05-30. https://symfony.com/blog/symfony2-meets-ez-publish-5 ↩

  12. Drupal (Projects using Symfony). Retrieved on 2015-12-01. https://symfony.com/projects/drupal ↩

  13. "Projects using Symfony Components". https://symfony.com/projects ↩

  14. "Meetic Backend Mutation With Symfony". https://www.slideshare.net/meeticTech/meetic-backend-mutation-with-symfony ↩

  15. Projects using Symfony https://symfony.com/projects ↩

  16. "Symfony Showcase: Vogue France". Archived from the original on 2015-09-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20150926132939/http://symfony.com/showcase/67 ↩

  17. "E-commerce projects using Symfony". Symfony.com. https://symfony.com/projects/category/e-commerce ↩

  18. symfony-docs/contributing/community/releases.rst at 4cd6dc2825924c9569621bf749f168a7ba2a235d · symfony/symfony-docs · GitHub. Github.com. Retrieved on 2016-03-16. https://github.com/symfony/symfony-docs/blob/4cd6dc2825924c9569621bf749f168a7ba2a235d/contributing/community/releases.rst ↩

  19. Symfony releases as of 2025-06-17. https://symfony.com/releases ↩

  20. Symfony Blog - About symfony 1.3 and 1.4 http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2009/08/06/about-symfony-1-3-and-symfony-1-4 ↩

  21. Symfony blog - Why will Symfony 2.0 finally use PHP 5.3? http://www.symfony-project.org/blog/2009/10/27/why-will-symfony-2-0-finally-use-php-5-3 ↩

  22. Symfony blog - Symfony2 release https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-2-0 ↩

  23. 2.0.23 released. Symfony (2013-03-20). Retrieved on 2014-05-30. https://symfony.com/blog/security-releases-cve-2013-5958-symfony-2-0-25-2-1-13-2-2-9-and-2-3-6-released ↩

  24. Symfony 2.1.0 released https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-2-1-0-released ↩

  25. 2.2.0. Symfony (2013-03-01). Retrieved on 2014-05-30. https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-2-2-0 ↩

  26. 2.3.0, the first LTS, is now available. Symfony (2013-06-03). Retrieved on 2014-05-30. https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-2-3-0-the-first-lts-is-now-available ↩

  27. 2.4.0 released. Symfony (2013-12-03). Retrieved on 2014-05-30. https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-2-4-0-released ↩

  28. Bump minimum version to PHP 7.1 for Symfony 4 https://github.com/symfony/symfony/pull/22733 ↩

  29. Symfony 4: End of HHVM support https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-4-end-of-hhvm-support ↩

  30. "Symfony 4.4 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2019-11-27. https://symfony.com/releases/4.4 ↩

  31. "Schedule | SymfonyCon Amsterdam 2019". amsterdam2019.symfony.com. Retrieved 2019-11-27. https://amsterdam2019.symfony.com/speakers#session-2983 ↩

  32. "Symfony 5.2 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2020-06-28. https://symfony.com/releases/5.2 ↩

  33. "Symfony 5.3 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2021-07-16. https://symfony.com/releases/5.3 ↩

  34. "Symfony 5.4 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2021-07-16. https://symfony.com/releases/5.4 ↩

  35. "Symfony 6.0 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2021-07-16. https://symfony.com/releases/6.0 ↩

  36. "Symfony 6.1 will require PHP 8.1 (Symfony Blog)". symfony.com. Retrieved 2022-02-25. https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-6-1-will-require-php-8-1 ↩

  37. "Symfony 6.1 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2022-12-29. https://symfony.com/releases/6.1 ↩

  38. "Symfony 6.2 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2022-12-29. https://symfony.com/releases/6.2 ↩

  39. "Symfony 6.3 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2022-12-29. https://symfony.com/releases/6.3 ↩

  40. "Symfony 6.4 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2022-12-29. https://symfony.com/releases/6.4 ↩

  41. "Symfony 7.0 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2023-12-18. https://symfony.com/releases/7.0 ↩

  42. "Symfony 7.1 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2023-12-18. https://symfony.com/releases/7.1 ↩

  43. "Symfony 7.2 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2024-12-08. https://symfony.com/releases/7.2 ↩

  44. "Symfony 7.3 release". symfony.com. Retrieved 2025-06-17. https://symfony.com/releases/7.3 ↩