Question

I’m starting a new project with symfony which is readily integrated with Doctrine and Propel, but I of course need to make a choice…. I was wondering if more experienced people out there have general pros and/or cons for going with either of these two?

Answer 1

I’d go with Doctrine. It seems to me that it is a much more active project and being the default ORM for symfony it is better supported (even though officially the ORMs are considered equal).

Furthermore I better like the way you work with queries (DQL instead of Criteria):

<?php
// Propel
$c = new Criteria();
$c->add(ExamplePeer::ID, 20);
$items = ExamplePeer::doSelectJoinFoobar($c);

// Doctrine
$items = Doctrine_Query::create()
       ->from('Example e')
       ->leftJoin('e.Foobar')
       ->where('e.id = ?', 20)
       ->execute();
?>

(Doctrine’s implementation is much more intuitive to me).

Also, I really prefer the way you manage relations in Doctrine.

I think this page from the Doctrine documentation is worth a read: http://www.doctrine-project.org/documentation/manual/1_2/en/introduction:doctrine-explained

To sum up: If I were starting a new project or had to choose between learning Doctrine and Propel I’d go for Doctrine any day.