# PHP

> Server-side scripting language for web pages and web applications.

- **Appeared:** 1995
- **Creators:** Rasmus Lerdorf, Zeev Suraski, Andi Gutmans
- **Type:** web
- **Status:** alive
- **Born from:** In 1994 Rasmus Lerdorf wrote a set of small CGI programs in C to track visits to his online résumé. He called the collection Personal Home Page Tools and released its source publicly in June 1995. In 1997 Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans began rewriting its parser for an e-commerce application they were building for a university project, and PHP 3.0 was announced in June 1998.
- **Reacts to:** c
- **Trade-offs:** reference counted; dynamic types; interpreted; concurrency: none. Cost: Each request starts a script from scratch, so state that must survive between pages has to live in a database or cache.
- **Slots:** server ●●● strong (WordPress and MediaWiki run on it.); browser ○○○ none (Only the HTML that PHP produces reaches the browser, never the code.); scripts ●●○ ok (Runs from the command line with the php binary.); data ●○○ weak
- **Alternatives:** python, ruby, javascript
- **Won where:** WordPress runs on 39.5 % of all websites (W3Techs, 30 October 2026) [source](https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress); PHP is used by 69.2 % of websites with a known server-side language [source](https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php); MediaWiki, the software Wikipedia runs on, requires PHP 8.3.0 for its latest stable release [source](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Installation_requirements); Facebook's Hack, a gradually typed language for HHVM that works with PHP (2014) [source](https://engineering.fb.com/2014/04/10/developer-tools/hack-developer-day-recap)
- **Timeline:** 1994: Rasmus Lerdorf writes CGI programs in C to track visits to his online résumé [source](https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php); 1995: Personal Home Page Tools is released to the public in June [source](https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php); 1998: PHP 3.0 is announced in June as the successor to PHP/FI 2.0 [source](https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php); 2015: PHP 7.0 is released, up to twice as fast as PHP 5.6 [source](https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php); 2020: PHP 8.0 is released with a JIT compiler and union types [source](https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php)
- **Links:** [website](https://www.php.net/), [repo](https://github.com/php/php-src), [docs](https://www.php.net/docs.php)
- **PLDB:** https://pldb.io/concepts/php.html
- **Sources:** https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php, https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress, https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Installation_requirements, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki, https://engineering.fb.com/2014/04/10/developer-tools/hack-developer-day-recap, https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/, https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology/
- **Verified:** no, draft of 2026-10-30
- **Canonical:** https://langwhy.dev/lang/php/

## Why it exists

In 1994 Rasmus Lerdorf wrote a set of small CGI programs in C to track visits to his online résumé. He called the collection Personal Home Page Tools and released its source publicly in June 1995 ([php.net history](https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php)). The first version was a set of CGI binaries written in C, not a language that ran inside a page. In 1997 Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans began rewriting its parser for an e-commerce application they were building for a university project, and PHP 3.0 was announced in June 1998 as the successor to PHP/FI 2.0 ([php.net history](https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php)).

## What it trades away

PHP starts a script for each request and discards its state at the end. That keeps deployment simple and stops one failed request from leaking into the next, but anything that must survive between pages has to live in a database or a cache. Each major version also brings compatibility work. PHP 7.0 was up to twice as fast as PHP 5.6 after a new engine, Zend Engine 3.0, and PHP 8.0 added a JIT compiler and new type features ([php.net history](https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php)).

## Where it won

WordPress shows the reach. W3Techs puts it on 39.5 % of all websites as of its October 2026 figures ([W3Techs](https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress)), and WordPress's own requirements page recommends PHP 8.3 or greater ([WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/)). Among websites with a known server-side language, PHP is used by 69.2 % ([W3Techs](https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php)). MediaWiki, the software that Wikipedia runs on ([MediaWiki](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki)), requires PHP 8.3.0 or later for its latest stable release ([MediaWiki](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Installation_requirements)). In 2014 Facebook announced Hack as "a gradually-typed programming language for HHVM that interoperates seamlessly with PHP" ([Facebook Engineering](https://engineering.fb.com/2014/04/10/developer-tools/hack-developer-day-recap)).

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Data: CC0, https://github.com/langwhy/langwhy/blob/main/data/languages/php.yaml