Laravel and CodeIgniter are both PHP frameworks. They have many differences but they also have their similarities. One of their similarities is that they both have migrations but I will be showing you the differences between their migrations.

Migration: A migration is a single PHP file that describes the changes to operate to the database.
A migration file can create or drop tables, add or remove columns, create indexes and even insert data 
into your database.

The Setup:

Laravel:

1. Type the below into your command line:
   php artisan make:migration migrationName
   • The naming conventions I use for the migrationName
     • If I am creating a table: createUsersTable
     • If I am altering a table: alterUsersTableAddContact – I usually specify what I am altering incase I need to alter the table again in the future then it is easy to keep track of changes.

CodeIgniter:

1. Open application/config/migration.php and check that $config['migration_enabled'] is set to true.
2. In application/config/ create a folder called migrations
3. In the migrations folder is where you can create your migrations
   • Naming conventions to use for the migration file name: YYYYMMDDHHIISS_create_users
     • where:
       • YYYYMMDDHHIISS is the time stamp of when you are creating the file
       • create_users is what the migration does (eg. creates a users table)
4. In the migration file you created add the below code:

Creating a Migration

Laravel:

1. Locate the migration file that was created (database/migrations/)
   • If you are creating a table:

1. • If you are altering a table:

CodeIgniter:

1. Edit your migration file you created
   • If you are creating a table:

• • If you are altering a table:

Running Migrations

Laravel:

1. Type the below into your command line
   • php artisan migrate
     • migrate:fresh  will drop all the tables you currently have in your DB and migrate all migrations from scratch
     • migrate:rollback will rollback your DB to the state it was before you did your last migration

CodeIgniter:

1. To run the migrations you have created you will need to create a controller called migrate
2. In your migrate controller add the code below:
3. To run the migrations go to http://yoursite.com/migrate  

Conclusion

Laravel and CodeIgniter are very similar in their processes but I find Laravel’s migrations a lot easier and faster to implement.

Happy Coding!