mtbcoder

I'm sure their benchmarks are more than adequate. In either case, if your barometer for what makes a good PHP framework is based on performance, you certainly wouldn't be choosing Symfony. If anything you'd go for for HHVM or Phalcon.

I won't disagree with you that CI is outdated, but it was originally created to work around the limitations of PHP4 and early versions of 5.x. Looking back in hindsight, it may seem "badly designed", but that would be taking it out of context.

Also, CI out performs Symfony in the web framework benchmarks: http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/. I certainly would never equate Symfony to "real speed".