Doctrine is brutal. Massively bloated, extremely slow, and feels (in general) like a cluster-f*. I like ORMs, and you can make them fast and effective. But in

Doctrine is brutal. Massively bloated, extremely slow, and feels (in general) like a cluster-f*. I like ORMs, and you can make them fast and effective. But in PHP, lightweight is king. I personally wouldn't go with anything beyond what's found in CodeIgniter.