Codeigniter vs. Kohana Database access speeds

I was doing some basic profiling for a project in which I needed the fastest raw speed I could get with database queries. I'm a fan of Codeigniter for projects that are suitable for it, but had heard from some that Kohana was faster, so I decided to do a very basic comparison of the two. I was using MAMP for OSX, and created a very small db, with a table that had 3 fields: (id), (first), and (last). The data sample was also very small, only a few records. The basic query I tested was a "SELECT * FROM [table]". There is of course nothing remotely scientific about this. It was just a quick ad dirty, very limited comparison. Take it as such. Versions used: CI2.1.3, Kohana 3.3.0.

Codeigniter

I really like Codeigniter (CI). But, one thing that is very evident from their own profiling functions, is that CI is a bit of a memory hog! Essentially, the same Controller function running in CI takes approximately 10X more memory than in Kohana! This in itself is not a reason not to use it. CI has bee used for a whole lot of projects, and is gaining in popularity. I continue to use it, knowing this. But credit where it's due: Kohana uses around 170,000 bytes of memory for the same functionality that CI uses 1,700,000 bytes.

Don't let the memory thing scare you, if you're new to this stuff. Your production server can easily handle the memory requirements of CI. And, Codeigniter has a lot more functionality available to it than Kohana does.

It is interesting to note, that there is not a lot of difference in execution time between CI using it's own Active Record functions, and PHP's mysql_xxx! CI Clearly has some very well written database code. The total time for the app was a bit longer ( no doubt due to the class navigation involved ) which more or less put the two on equal footing, but the query time was certainly faster using CI's ORM.

Codeigniter with mysql_xxx
    $mysql = mysql_connect( 'localhost:8889', 'root', 'root' );
    mysql_select_db('cidb');
    $q = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM names");
    foreach ( mysql_fetch_assoc( $q ) as $row ) {
      echo $row;
    }

Time for this to execute: 0.1357 s
Total Time for app:         0.2137 s

Codeigniter with it's Active Record

     $this->output->enable_profiler(TRUE);
     $query = $this->db->get('names');
     foreach ( $query->result() as $row ){
 echo $row->first . " ";
 echo $row->last . "
";
     }

Time for this to execute: 0.1150 s
Total Time for app:         0.3800 s

Kohana

Kohana's Profiler requires some book end code. Here it is:

Kohana's Profiler Book ends

    // Be sure to only profile if it's enabled
    if ( Kohana::$profiling === TRUE )
    {
        // Start a new benchmark
        $benchmark = Profiler::start( 'Your Category', __FUNCTION__ );
    }

    CODE UNDER TEST...

    if ( isset( $benchmark ) )
    {
        // Stop the benchmark
        Profiler::stop($benchmark);
    }

Kohana started as an off-shoot of CI, but since has been completely re-coded. CI wraps everything in a single, large object (which explains its larger memory footprint ), where as Kohana does not. Kohana does not have the quality of documentation that CI does, but the situation is improving all the time. Kohana also does not offer as many 'Helpers' and 'Libraries' as CI. Both frameworks are great choices, imho.

Long story short, the absolute fastest database access, and overall fastest executing database access methodology given the constraints of this 'quick and dirty' profile was plain old PHP mysql_xxx

Kohana with mysql_xxx

    $mysql = mysql_connect( 'localhost:8889', 'root', 'root' );
    mysql_select_db('cidb');
    $q = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM names");
    foreach ( mysql_fetch_assoc( $q ) as $row ) {
      echo $row;
    }
    $this->response->body( View::factory( 'profiler/stats' ) );

Time for this to execute: 0.004460 s
Total Time for app:         0.028532 s

Kohana with mysqli_xxx

    $mysqli = new mysqli();
    $mysqli->connect( 'localhost', 'root', 'root', 'cidb', '8889' );
    $result = $mysqli->query( "SELECT * FROM names");
    foreach ( $result->fetch_row() as $row ) {
      echo $row;
    }
    $this->response->body( View::factory( 'profiler/stats' ) );

Time for this to execute: 0.004965 s
Total Time for app:         0.105614 s

Kohana with Kohana's DB Object

    $r = DB::select()->from('names')->execute();
    foreach ( $r as $person ) {
      echo $person['first'];
    }
    $this->response->body( View::factory( 'profiler/stats' ) );

Time for this to execute: 0.017171 s
Total Time for app:         0.151900 s

Kohana with PDO

    $dbh = new PDO( "mysql:dbname=cidb; host=localhost; port=8889", 'root', 'root' );
    $q = "SELECT * FROM names";
    foreach ( $dbh->query( $q ) as $row ){
      $g = $row['first'];
    }
    $this->response->body( View::factory( 'profiler/stats' ) );

Time for this to execute: 0.128000 s
Total Time for app:         0.153443 s