I am putting together a catalog (catalogs by nature are just metadata), and so rather than using a database, I am using an RDF store and SPARQL processor to compile the data. I
Graphity PHP version is an object-oriented framework that combines JAX-RS-style RESTful API with Jena-style RDF API, and is based solely on W3C standards. Disclaimer: I am one of the developers.
It's easiest to use with a remote RDF cloud-store like Dydra.