PHP history: from simple script to modern programming language
PHP was created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf, a software developer at IBM. Lerdorf developed PHP (originally Personal Home Page, later PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) as a simple server-side scripting language with C syntax to generate dynamic HTML pages. Although PHP was never designed for large-scale use, it quickly became popular because it gave web developers an accessible way to build interactive websites without learning complex programming languages.
Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans joined Rasmus Lerdorf in the development work and rewrote the parser together with him. Zend Engine 1 was born. With PHP 5 and Zend Engine 2, object oriented programming (OOP) was added, which allowed PHP to grow from a simple little scripting language into a fully fledged programming language suited to complex web applications and enterprise development.
Later, namespaces (PHP 5.3), anonymous functions (PHP 5.3) and traits (PHP 5.4) were added as well.
PHP market position: why PHP is the most used web programming language
According to W3Techs, in 2026 PHP is used by 76.8% of all websites whose server-side programming language is known, which keeps it by far the most popular choice for building websites with PHP. This dominance is strongly supported by popular platforms such as WordPress (which powers 43% of all websites), Drupal, and WooCommerce. Well-known PHP applications include Wikipedia, parts of Facebook’s backend, and countless e-commerce platforms that serve millions of users every day.
PHP has also held a high position for years in the top 10 of most important programming languages.
PHP 7 revolution: performance and modernisation
Although PHP was widely used and very popular among developers, it also had its problems.
PHP 5 struggled with significant performance problems that were especially noticeable in large web applications. PHP also regularly made the news for the wrong reasons because of security vulnerabilities. At the end of 2015, the development team released version 7 with the revolutionary Zend Engine 3, which made execution up to 100% faster compared with PHP 5.6. This dramatic performance improvement, combined with new functionality such as scalar type declarations and return type declarations, marked PHP’s transformation into a modern, enterprise-ready programming language.
From version 7 onwards, the development team started taking things more seriously. Old parts were marked as deprecated. A yearly release cycle was also introduced.
Composer package manager: PHP’s modern ecosystem
A game changer for PHP was the introduction of Composer, PHP’s package manager, which completely transformed the development landscape. Traditional PHP frameworks such as Zend Framework 1 and CodeIgniter were monolithic systems maintained by a single organisation. Once you chose such a framework, you were locked into all its components, including the ones you didn’t need. This approach limited flexibility and made projects heavy and slow.
Composer changed this by enabling a distributed ecosystem in which developers can choose exactly the components they need. Through Packagist.org, the central repository with more than 350,000 available packages, developers can automate dependency management and install only the functionality their project actually uses. This resulted in lighter, faster applications and considerably raised code quality.
Modern frameworks such as Laravel and Symfony also switched to a Composer-based architecture with modular components. These frameworks introduced common enterprise development techniques such as service containers, middleware, and event-driven architecture. Their set-up pushes developers to use design patterns and follow clean code principles, which brought PHP projects to a professional level comparable with other enterprise programming languages.
Those same frameworks also added other common development techniques to the way they work. Think of service containers, middleware and events. Their set-up forced you to code better. You got to know design patterns and there was more attention for clean code. As a result, PHP as a whole reached a higher level.
PHP 8 and modern capabilities: JIT compiler and type safety
PHP 8, released in 2020, brought revolutionary improvements. The Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler can make applications up to 3x faster for CPU-intensive tasks. PHP 8.1 (end of 2021) introduced enums for type-safe constants, readonly properties for immutable objects, and first-class callable syntax. Other important additions are union types for flexible type declarations, match expressions as more powerful switch statements, named arguments for better code readability, and nullsafe operators that prevent null pointer exceptions.
PHP 8.2 and 8.3 brought further refinements such as readonly classes, disjunctive normal form types, and improved performance optimisations. The development team works systematically on making the language safer and stricter, so that modern PHP can hold its own against TypeScript, Go, and other contemporary programming languages. With this evolution, PHP has proven that it has grown from a simple little scripting language into a mature, enterprise-ready programming language with a rich ecosystem of modern frameworks and tools.
So, is PHP still relevant? Absolutely.
That’s why, for now, we at Eenvoud will keep using PHP as our most important server-side language for building websites and web applications. The combination of PHP’s proven stability, extensive framework support and cost-effective hosting makes it the ideal choice for us for a wide range of projects, from simple websites to complex e-commerce platforms.
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Questions about PHP or want a website built with PHP?
Do you have questions about PHP development, do you want a website built with PHP, or are you considering PHP for your next project? We’re happy to help with advice on the best approach, framework choices and implementation strategies that fit your specific needs.
- For a good overview of PHP, we recommend taking a look at this timeline: https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/php-25/
- PHP Watch keeps track of news related to PHP: https://php.watch/
- For standards and best practices: https://www.php-fig.org
- To build a complete application faster, at Eenvoud we use frameworks such as Laravel: https://laravel.com