On the TutsPlus.com site today they've posted an opinion article that tries to help answer the question "Should You Use a PHP Framework?". They provide their own list of top five pros and cons, representing each side and hopefully getting you thinking about your own project.

From routing HTTP requests to accessing the database and rendering the user interface, most web applications have a lot in common with each other. Many of them allow their visitors to sign in, and it's hard to imagine a web application without email sending. A software framework is a way to put this observation into use.

But is using a framework always the best way to go, or does it sometimes make sense just to start from scratch using nothing but plain PHP? To answer the question, in this tutorial, we will look at five pros and cons of using a PHP framework.

Items under their "pros" list include how they allow for more rapid development, easier maintenance in the future and the support of the community around the project. Their "cons" list talks about topics like the more general approach most frameworks take, the lower level of performance vs just PHP and the limited visibility into how the core framework works where it's not supposed to be customized.