What is Yii

Yii is a high-performance component-based PHP framework for developing large-scale Web applications. It enables maximum reusability in Web programming and can significantly accelerate the development process. The name Yii (pronounced as Yee or [ji:]) stands for easy, efficient and extensible.

1. Requirements ¶

To run an Yii-powered Web application, you need a Web server supporting PHP 5.1.0 or higher.

For developers who want to use Yii, understanding object-oriented programming (OOP) is very helpful, because Yii is a pure OOP framework.

2. What is Yii Best for? ¶

Yii is a generic Web programming framework that can be used for developing virtually all sorts of Web applications. Because it is light-weighted and equipped with sophisticated caching solutions, it is especially suitable for developing high-traffic applications, such as portals, forums, content management systems (CMS), e-commerce systems, etc.

3. How is Yii Compared with Other Frameworks? ¶

Like most PHP frameworks, Yii is an MVC framework.

Yii excels over other PHP frameworks in that it is efficient, feature-rich and clearly-documented. Yii is carefully designed from the beginning to fit for serious Web application development. It is neither a byproduct of some project nor a conglomerate of third-party work. It is the result of the authors' rich experience of Web application development and the investigation and reflection of the most popular Web programming frameworks and applications.