Kohana

Kohana began in 2007 as a fork of the CodeIgniter framework. It’s known for its excellent performance when compared to CodeIgniter, with a less-bloated library than some of the other PHP frameworks.

Kohana is a small PHP Model View Controller (MVC) framework. Its hierarchic MVC file system makes it flexible and extensible.

Like CodeIgniter, it is easier to learn and use than some of the other PHP frameworks because of its lighter-weight library. This light-weight library is also why its performance is faster than other PHP frameworks. Kohana also provides good security against typical attacks, such as XSS, SQL injection, and session hijacking.

Kohana makes sense as a framework for certain types of projects, though not every project benefits from its lightweight framework.