Phalcon is harder to debug
After 4 years, load of projects, I did not buy this.
I start using phalcon for create a auto dialer which can dial 7.500.000 phone numbers per month (in single server). No problem even it was running very stupid SQL schema.
Then I created web video webchat website which has websocket chat. Also I create lots of mini projects for this or that. a payment api, a callcenter app which has javascript sip client embedded.
Now I have an hybrid cms system top of the phalcon which can be a single page application or regular web page same time without any code or config change, which can support bookmarking f5 anything you name it. I'm burying alive JS frontend frameworks, just simple jquery and some tricks because of phalcon. (ofcourse I can run same thing with other problems however they cannot this fast with this large amout of my own php files)
And I did not need to debug phalcon in any single time. Maybe move some boiler plate code in zephyr.
Anyone who runs cheap hosting should run phalcon, I handle tons of loads with digital oceans cheapest nodes. Our callcenter system was based on zend and barrelly handles 100 operators at 80$ droplet new one uses 10 dollars and doest not blips. Man I had thousand some times hundred thousand rows for pagination which barrely slows. Phalcon reduces overhead dramatically. If there is a demand, cheap hostings will provide support.
And from my viewpoint using template in template language bit overkill. View Templates makes code complicated. Also five years ago I use plain php views in zend because I did not find anybody who can use templates cleanly. Templates is mess, plus you have to have learn template language in template language.
Instead I'm using static classes for templates which returns simple objects which has some predefined variables and very easy to access in IDE.
My code still evolves however old ones still works phalcon latest version (just one change in config). Even I'm using phalcon in very unorthodox vay.
I'm continuously search Web about php frameworks, especially phalcon.
Phalcon appears every this years best framework, top 10 framework every kind of php framework showdown and I did not find any meaningful complaint against phalcon except that phalcon is harder to debug and it seems they are debug and fixing laravel daily.
After some time I just realise all of those people can't install phalcon so they can't use phalcon, because they can't recommend or bash or complaint or praise. They just say
Uh oh yea, we see that benchmark. It was scary. PHP can't go that fast, it must be so dangerous or forbidden. Please just go away...
And why should I convert Laravel to zephyr ? Is phalcon a bad framework ? I don't think so.
And converting Laravel does not solve the problem, those guys still can't setup so they can't use Phalaravel framework either.
And If I try to convert something. I prefer phalcon based Wordpress. Which I'm really really thinking loudly in these days.
Any one who complete a project with phalcon does not look back again.
My Humble Regards