When I (David Hermann) joined OktoLab in mid-2008, we had to face some serious challenges. The previous (and at that time only) developer had abandoned the company at short notice and left a mess of various software services that were either loosely or not at all coupled. [...] This situation was not caused by the developer, it was a result of the evolution of the company. The situation had gotten out of hand though, so there was a huge pressure to improve it.

His choice of framework for this new software tool was, obviously, Symfony and he combined it with some javascript/ajax, working with the external-facing APIs the other data sources had and what all of his work got for him and the company - a 30% drop in how long it took to get things done.