In this new post on the SitePoint PHP blog today, Maarten Manders asks the question of whether the latest offerings from eZ Systems (the "components") are a threat to the Zend Framework still in development.

Just about a month ago Zend Technologies announced Zend PHP Framework in line with the Zend PHP Collaboration Project with the stated goal to offer a "de facto standard PHP Web application development and deployment environment".

While Zend is enjoying the attention in the PHP world, eZ systems determinedly worked on a very similar project called eZ components, of which a first beta version is to be released tomorrow Monday. Let’s have a closer look at what it has to offer and how it compares to Zend’s PHP Framework.

Stepping through the component framework, he notes the deisgn of it all, what the components are and how they're strutured, the license behind it all, and when it will all be made public. In his opinion, this offering from eZ Systems as trumped the Zend Framework - for now...