CakePHP has several features that make it great choice as a framework for developing applications swiftly and with the least amount of hassle:
Compatibility with PHP4 and PHP5
Supplies integrated CRUD for database interaction and simplified queries (including scaffolding)
Request dispatcher with good looking, custom URLs
Fast and flexible templating (PHP syntax, with helpers)
Useful core features (for access control lists, AJAX integration, etc.)
Works from any website subdirectory, with little to no Apache configuration involved