Codeigniter vs PHPCake

I am trying to keep current with state of the art design practices, although I have not coded anything major for 2 years already. I have a feeling that I need to get in touch with current design practices from within, not only by theory. This is a must for staying productive. Now I am looking for nice php mvc platform to try out things.

Priorly, we have worked with ZNF and I have worked a bit with some version of Fusebox. Personally, the first one is a bit cumbersome with the configuration files, and the second one… well, i have used it for short and did not liked. Also, I have worked a bit on project that was here for 3 or 4 years already, thus the version was really old. However, knowledge of both is quite useful for getting requirements for frameworks right. This helped to find proper competitors for the next test : Php Cake and Code Igniter.

PHP Cake:

Pluses:

1. Stricter framework, better compliance with MVC.
2. Bigger amount of modules
3. Lots of examples and snipets
4. Has a feel of more mature framework for me (although worked for very little with it).

Minuses:

1. Heavier than Igniter, more configuring to do.
2. Its template system and smarty integration is kinda strange.
3. The overall templates (display schemes) implementation has its own limits.

Code Igniter

Pluses:

1. Looser – more ways to do things.
2. Easy configuration, nice loging capabilities
3. Lighter
4. Template engine or (optionally) native php for views. Feels nice.

Minuses:

1. Less modules, although I still need to browse through site more.
2. Loose system has its own good and bad sides – less order in the source files.

Thats all for now. Now i am trying to do an app on my own using igniter to check for quirks and get used to it. Of couse, I am doing it when i have spare time, thus it will be SLOW.