Looking back and looking ahead to the future

30 years of PHP

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of PHP, we attended PHPverse 2025. In our recap, we summarized the most exciting developments, from new tools such as PIE and FrankenPHP, to insights into the future of Laravel, Symfony, and the PHP Foundation.

PHP is turning 30 this year, a significant milestone for one of the web's core technologies. To celebrate, JetBrains organized PHPverse 2025, a virtual event where community experts shared exciting insights into the past, present, and future of PHP. We attended the event and would like to share our insights here.

What is PHP? #

PHP is a programming language used to create websites and online applications. It runs on the server and ensures that content is loaded and processed dynamically — for instance, when submitting a form or managing content.

Well-known systems such as WordPress, Typo3, and CraftCMS, as well as large platforms such as Wikipedia, are based on PHP. Due to the language's long history, there are countless tried-and-true tools, libraries, and solutions. This makes PHP development stable and economical.

The PHP Foundation is the backbone of further development #

Founded in 2021, the PHP Foundation is a key player in PHP's continued development. The Foundation supports the language financially and ensures its long-term stability and development by supporting core developers. At the event, we gained a deeper understanding of the Foundation's important role in organizing the community and communicating with external partners. We also openly discussed the sometimes turbulent past of PHP, due to issues such as a lack of governance structures or security problems. This discussion showed how these issues are dealt with professionally today.

Security audit and cooperation with the EU #

A real highlight was gaining insight into the comprehensive security audit of the PHP source code. PHP was thoroughly checked for vulnerabilities in cooperation with the Open Source Technology Improvement Fund (OSTIF) and the Quarkslab security team. Notably, the PHP Foundation is now active in political discourse, working with the EU Commission on designing the “Cyber Resilience Act.” This sends a strong message to companies that rely on PHP: the language is being developed and secured strategically.

FrankenPHP #

Another Exciting Milestone: FrankenPHP is now officially part of the PHP Foundation! This modern application server is based on the Caddy web server and offers innovative features such as native support for real-time communication, automatic HTTPS configuration, and improved performance and efficiency. We are particularly interested in its close integration with frameworks such as Laravel and Symfony, which promises real benefits in hosting and the production environment. We will take a closer look at FrankenPHP soon and are excited about the possibilities it offers.

Goodbye PECL! #

PIE (PHP Installer for Extensions), which is currently under development, will serve as a modern replacement for the outdated PECL (PHP Extension Community Library). The goal is to simplify the management of PHP extensions significantly. Composer serves as inspiration, and direct integration is available via Packagist. Version 1.0 looks promising — we are already converting our projects to the new installer.

Laravel and Symfony #

There were also exciting insights into the major PHP frameworks, Laravel and Symfony. Taylor Otwell and Nicolas Grekas presented innovations and upcoming developments that will make working with both frameworks more efficient and modern. We will, of course, continue to stay informed and are excited to see how the two ecosystems develop in the coming months.

Conclusion #

The event was informative for us and sent a strong signal that, after 30 years, PHP is more vibrant and future-proof than ever. The language is constantly evolving thanks to a dedicated community and strong organizations like the PHP Foundation. One thing is certain for us: we will continue to rely on PHP and actively support new developments so that our customers always benefit from modern, stable, and powerful technology.

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