Its simple and effective structure attracted me to use Yii. Mainly the object relational concept using gii, widget, extension support. Altogether Yii has active developer contribution. When comes to Forum, it is more effective than any other frameworks in this category. I have developed 2 applications using Yii, and I am very happy with its performance. Speed and caching are the best mechanisms that differentiates Yii from other frameworks. Like other programming languages, Yii is the best framework to support Grid usage in application. Also, in case of database migration, run time logging, doc builder; Yii handles it the best way than any other framework.

I've been into programming for a long time, I did not touch PHP ever. I had to build a simple booking app for a relative and did it using Yii. It's versatile, simple as you want it to be and with a decent documentation.

CRUD done easy with the Gii built-in feature. Easy to learn, it has a great community to work with. Very fast and really lightweight.