Tangra is a framework aimed at streamlining the development of PHP5 applications by boosting the productivity of the developers. It consists of a Code Library, a Control Center, and various user-selected modules. Tangra's primary objective is to provide robust and powerful tools within a consistent and unifying environment, in order to free developers from annoying repetitive tasks and instead allowing them concentrate on more important aspects of their applications.

The Tangra framework is not intended for use on high-traffic sites. In general, it is more suited for intranet or extranet environments, where reliability, feature richness and usability are more important than serving 50,000+ hits per hour.

Tangra's basic principle is modularity. The core library provides only essential functionality, with most of the feature-providing classes stored in external modules. This approach allows individual modules to be easily distributed and updated, and allow end users to upgrade the entire platform with single click, with the module manager handling compatibility and dependency issues.