I've been using ZF1 and then ZF2 for the last 4 years. The learning curve is a bit steep, but when you understand how the framework works, then it's a breeze to work with.
I just had to learn by trying and looking at the sources, since the documentation is quite poor.
I never used Symfony, but I'm curious to hear from someone who tried both (ZF2, Symfony 2), what they like best of Symfony. Might give it a try in the next projects
I've never used Zend, but was tasked with creating a new web app for our customers.
I did some research, and after reading this article comparing the PHP frameworks [0], I ended up choosing Laravel, which I think was a great choice. The documentation seems quite good, and there seems to be a strong community. I found this site which has video tutorials that teach the framework https://laracasts.com/
After sitting through a few lessons, I was off, and finished a production ready web application in about a week, and was really proud of how it turned out, especially since I do systems administration for a living and not development.
We have a million line codebase that uses a bunch of ZF1 functionality (validation, database, web services, ...) plugged into a bespoke core. Overall I can't say we had any complaints. What we used from it worked well, and adapting it to our needs was relatively easy. We never did use any of the MVC or routing features though. And we never upgraded to ZF2, mostly because there wasn't any real reason to.
