I've got a challenge for you. The next time you start a new project, try not using a PHP framework.

Now, this isn't an anti-framework screed. Neither is it a promotion of not-invented-here thinking. After all, we're going to be using some packages written by several framework developers in this tutorial. I've got nothing but great respect for the innovation going on in that space.

This isn't about them. This is about you. It's about giving yourself the opportunity to grow as a developer.

Perhaps the biggest benefit you'll find working without a framework is the wealth of knowledge about what's going on under the hood. You get to see exactly what's happening without relying on the framework's magic to take care of things for you in a way that you can't debug and don't really understand.

It's quite possible your next job will not grant the luxury of starting a greenfield project with your framework of choice. The reality is that most high-value, business-critical PHP jobs involve existing applications. And whether that application is built in a framework currently enjoying popular support like Laravel or Symfony, a framework from days gone by like CodeIgniter or FuelPHP, or even the depressingly widespread legacy PHP application employing an "include-oriented architecture", building without a framework now will better prepare you to take on any PHP project in the future.

In the past, it was an uphill battle to build without a framework because some kind of system had to interpret and route HTTP requests, send HTTP responses, and manage dependencies. The lack of industry standards necessarily meant that, at the very least, those components of a framework were tightly coupled. If you didn't start with a framework, you'd end up building one yourself.

But today, thanks to all the autoloading and interoperability work done by PHP-FIG, building without a framework doesn't mean building it all by yourself. There are so many excellent, interoperable packages from a wide range of vendors. Pulling it all together is easier than you think!