# yiisoft/yii2: a PHP framework that still ships releases

> Yii 2 is a BSD-3-Clause PHP MVC framework whose last push was on 2026-09-20 and which shipped 2.0.55 on 2026-05-09. Here is what the repository documents, how to install it, and where it stops being the right tool.

**yiisoft/yii2** — Yii 2: The Fast, Secure and Professional PHP Framework

- Repository: https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2
- Website: http://www.yiiframework.com
- Stars: 14,289 · Forks: 6,758
- Language: PHP
- License: BSD-3-Clause
- Published: 2026-09-21 · Updated: 2026-09-21 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/yiisoft-yii2

## What Yii 2 is for, and who ends up using it

Yii 2 is a general-purpose PHP web framework. The README describes it as "a modern framework designed to be a solid foundation for your PHP application" and says it "works right out of the box pre-configured with reasonable defaults." That sentence is the whole pitch: you get routing, controllers, views, models, form validation, database access and authentication wired together before you write a line of application code.

The audience is teams building server-rendered PHP applications or JSON APIs on their own infrastructure. The repository layout supports that reading. framework/ holds the core code, tests/ holds the core test suite, docs/ holds documentation, and build/ is described in the README as "internally used build tools." There is no application skeleton in this repository. The README points readers to the Definitive Guide for installation rather than giving commands here, which is a deliberate split: the framework package and the project template are separate artifacts.

If you are choosing between a framework and a set of libraries you assemble yourself, Yii 2 sits firmly on the framework side. The trade is convention for flexibility, and the README leans on the flexibility half of that: "The framework is easy to adjust to meet your needs, because Yii has been designed to be flexible."

## How the framework is laid out and how a request moves through it

The top-level entries tell you most of what you need about the architecture. composer.json makes this a Composer package, so the framework itself is a dependency rather than something you copy into your tree. The presence of phpstan.dist.neon, phpstan-7x.dist.neon, phpstan-baseline.neon and phpstan-baseline-7x.neon shows the project runs static analysis at two PHP version levels and tracks a baseline of accepted findings, which is a common way to keep analysis strict without freezing development on a large codebase. phpunit.xml.dist configures the PHP test suite; package.json configures a much smaller JavaScript suite under tests/js/tests with mocha, chai, jsdom and sinon, plus an eslint script that lints ./framework/assets and ./tests/js.

Those two lint targets are revealing. The JavaScript in this repository is not the application's JavaScript. It is the JavaScript that ships inside framework/assets, meaning the client-side widgets the framework itself provides. Everything else on the front end is your problem, or a separate package's problem.

The Dockerfile confirms the Composer-centric model. It takes a base image name from the build argument DOCKER_YII2_PHP_IMAGE, sets WORKDIR /project, copies composer.* in, runs composer install --prefer-dist, then copies the rest of the source and puts /project/vendor/bin on PATH. That last line matters: it is how command-line tools installed as Composer dependencies become callable by name inside the container. The image itself is not built here; the PHP base image is supplied externally through that build argument, so the repository does not pin a PHP version for you.

## Installing Yii 2 and getting one page to render

The README does not give install commands. It states that the minimum required PHP version is 7.4, that the framework "works best with PHP 8", and directs you to the Definitive Guide for step-by-step instructions. So the honest starting point is the guide, not a copy-paste block from this repository.

What the repository does establish is that Yii 2 is a Composer package named yiisoft/yii2, which the badges link to on Packagist. Adding it to an existing project is therefore a Composer operation:

```bash
composer require yiisoft/yii2
```

That installs the framework and its dependencies into vendor/. It does not create an application: no entry script, no config directory, no controllers. For a runnable skeleton you need the project template the guide describes, which is a separate package. Treat the command above as adding the framework to something you already have.

The repository's own Dockerfile shows the pattern the project uses for a working environment. It installs dependencies first, before copying the source, so the dependency layer caches independently of your code:

```dockerfile
ARG DOCKER_YII2_PHP_IMAGE
FROM ${DOCKER_YII2_PHP_IMAGE}
WORKDIR /project
ADD composer.* /project/
RUN /usr/local/bin/composer install --prefer-dist
ADD ./ /project
ENV PATH /project/vendor/bin:${PATH}
```

Note the order. composer.json and composer.lock are added first, composer install runs, and only then is the rest of the source copied in. If you build your own image from this pattern, expect the dependency install to be skipped on rebuilds where composer.lock has not changed. Also note that the base image is not defined in this repository; you must supply DOCKER_YII2_PHP_IMAGE yourself at build time, and the README gives no guidance on which image to choose.

For a first real use, the guide is the only documented path, and the README is explicit that it covers installation. The framework will not scaffold an application for you from this repository alone.

## The official installation path runs through the website, not the code

This is the first real friction point. A developer who clones yiisoft/yii2 and looks for a quickstart finds a README that delegates installation entirely to an external guide, and a repository whose top level contains no application entry point. If your evaluation process is "clone it and see something run," you will not get that here.

The same split applies to documentation generally. The Definitive Guide and the Class Reference live at yiiframework.com, with a PDF version of the guide and a mirror that the README says is "updated every 15 minutes." The docs/ directory in the repository holds contribution and internals material, including report-an-issue.md, translation-workflow.md and git-workflow.md, rather than the guide itself. So the documentation you will actually read is not versioned alongside the code you will actually run. When a release changes behaviour, the guide and the release notes are the places to reconcile it, and neither is in this checkout.

That is a defensible choice for a framework with a website, but it means offline work and code review against a pinned version both require extra care. There is no local copy of the guide in the repository you install.

## Where Yii 2 is the wrong tool

The README is thin on limitations, so the constraints have to be read off the repository itself. The clearest one is the PHP floor. The minimum is PHP 7.4. If you are on an older runtime, this framework is simply not available to you, and the README does not describe a backport path.

The second constraint is the extension ecosystem. Searches around this project repeatedly pair it with separate packages: bootstrap5, bootstrap4, mongodb, redis, queue, swiftmailer, gii. None of those are in this repository. The framework core is here; the integrations are elsewhere, each with its own release cadence and its own compatibility window against the core version you pin. That is normal for a modular framework, but it means an upgrade of yiisoft/yii2 is only half the work. You also have to check the packages you actually installed.

The third is front-end scope. The JavaScript tooling in package.json lints and tests framework/assets, which is the framework's own widget code. Yii 2 does not take a position on your build pipeline for application JavaScript, and the repository contains no bundler configuration for application assets. If you want a framework that owns the entire front-end build, this is not it.

Finally, the version line matters. The README's "Versions & PHP compatibility" section points to a Release Cycle page on the website rather than stating support windows in the repository. If you need a written support commitment before adopting, that page is where it lives, and the README will not answer it for you.

## Yii 2 against Laravel, an alternative with a different centre of gravity

The comparison people search for is Yii versus Laravel, and the difference that shows up in this repository is where each puts its weight. Yii 2 is distributed as a framework package plus a separate application template, with integrations (Bootstrap, Redis, MongoDB, queue, mail) living in their own repositories. Laravel ships a much larger first-party surface: its application skeleton, its ORM, its queue and mail components, and its asset tooling are all maintained under one project with one release cycle.

The practical consequence is upgrade surface. With Yii 2 you pin yiisoft/yii2 and then pin each integration independently, which gives you room to move one piece at a time and also gives you more version combinations to test. With Laravel, one version bump tends to move everything at once, which is less configuration and less freedom.

The second difference is the database layer. Yii 2's data access is built around PDO, and the MongoDB integration is a separate package because it does not fit that model. Laravel's Eloquent is an ActiveRecord implementation with its own query builder that is not PDO-bound in the same way. If your storage is relational, both are fine. If it is not, the Yii 2 path means reaching for an integration package rather than expecting the core to cover it.

Neither is faster in any way this repository documents. The README calls the framework "fast, secure and efficient," which is a claim without a number attached, and there are no benchmarks in the repository to check it against.

## Licence, releases and what an upgrade actually costs

Yii 2 is BSD-3-Clause. The repository carries LICENSE.md and package.json declares the same identifier. A permissive licence of this kind generally lets you use, modify and redistribute the code, including in closed-source products, provided you keep the copyright notice and licence text and do not use the project's name to endorse your product. That is a general description of the licence family, not legal advice; read LICENSE.md and, if the distinction matters commercially, get proper review.

On cadence, the release history is concrete. 2.0.53 landed on 2025-06-27, 2.0.54 on 2026-01-09, and 2.0.55 on 2026-05-09. The last push to the default branch was on 2026-09-20. The version numbers stay inside the 2.0.x line, which is what you want from a framework you already depend on: patch releases rather than a migration.

The upgrade cost is not the framework alone. Because Bootstrap, Redis, MongoDB, queue and mail are separate packages, your real upgrade is a matrix of yiisoft/yii2 plus every integration you installed. The repository gives you no compatibility table for that matrix. The README points to the Release Cycle page for supported versions, and that is the document you have to check before bumping the core. Budget the time for the integrations, not just for the framework.

## Conclusion

Adopt Yii 2 if you want a PHP MVC framework with a long release record, a BSD-3-Clause licence and a pre-configured default stack, and if your runtime is PHP 7.4 or newer with PHP 8 preferred. Do not adopt it if you need a database layer that is not PDO-based, or a front-end asset pipeline that does not go through the framework's own asset bundles. Before writing code, verify three things: that your PHP version satisfies the README's minimum, that the Bootstrap or MongoDB or Redis extension you need exists as a separate package, and that the installation instructions on the website still match the release you pin in composer.json.

## FAQ

### Is Yii 2 still relevant?

The repository is not archived, its last push was on 2026-09-20, and it shipped version 2.0.55 on 2026-05-09 after 2.0.54 in January 2026 and 2.0.53 in June 2025. Releases are still coming, and the version line has stayed on 2.0.x, so existing applications are not being pushed into a migration.

### What PHP version does yiisoft/yii2 require?

The README states that the minimum required PHP version is 7.4 and that the framework works best with PHP 8. The repository does not pin a PHP image for you; the Dockerfile takes the base image from the DOCKER_YII2_PHP_IMAGE build argument.

### How do I install yiisoft/yii2?

The README does not give install commands. It directs readers to the Definitive Guide on the website for step-by-step instructions. The framework is a Composer package, so it is added with composer require yiisoft/yii2, but that does not create a runnable application; the project template is a separate package.

### Does yiisoft/yii2 include Bootstrap, Redis or MongoDB support?

No. Those integrations are separate packages, which is why searches about this project pair it with bootstrap5, bootstrap4, redis and mongodb. The repository holds the core framework in framework/, and each integration has its own release cadence against the core version you pin.

### What licence does yiisoft/yii2 use?

BSD-3-Clause. The repository carries LICENSE.md and package.json declares the same identifier. A permissive licence of this kind generally allows use and redistribution, including in closed-source products, as long as the copyright notice and licence text are kept.

## Sources

- [License: BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/blob/master/LICENSE)
- [Project website](http://www.yiiframework.com)
- [README](https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/blob/master/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/releases)
- [yiisoft/yii2 on GitHub](https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2)

---

Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/yiisoft-yii2