Why PHP is Gaining Popularity in The Unexpected Comeback of a Classic Language

PHP has been a cornerstone of web development for over two decades, powering millions of websites and web applications, including giants like Facebook and Wikipedia. For a while, PHP had a bit of a reputation problem, with many developers and tech pundits predicting its decline in favor of newer languages like JavaScript (with Node.js), Python, or Ruby. Yet, here we are in 2024, and PHP is not only alive but thriving again.

So what happened? Why is PHP gaining popularity, especially when so many were ready to write it off? In this article, we’ll explore some key reasons why PHP is making a comeback and why you might want to give it a second look if you’re a developer or a business looking to build robust web applications.

1. Modern PHP is Fast and Efficient

One of the main reasons PHP got a bad rap in the past was its perceived performance issues. However, since the release of PHP 7 in 2015 and the subsequent improvements in PHP 8 and beyond, the language has seen massive performance enhancements. These updates drastically reduced memory usage and execution time, making PHP one of the fastest scripting languages available for web development.

In fact, benchmarks show that PHP 8.2 (released in December 2023) is almost three times faster than PHP 5.x, which was the norm just a few years ago. The performance improvements, combined with PHP’s low barrier to entry and wide hosting availability, make it an excellent choice for building high-traffic applications without breaking the bank on server costs.

2. PHP 8 Features Are Game-Changing

PHP 8 and 8.1 introduced new, modern features that have made the language more robust, secure, and easy to work with. Some key features include:

• JIT (Just-In-Time) Compilation: JIT optimizes the execution of PHP code by compiling it into machine code at runtime, greatly improving performance for certain tasks.

• Union Types and Named Arguments: These new typing features make PHP code more predictable and maintainable, closing the gap with more strongly-typed languages like Java or C#.

• Attributes (Annotations): These allow developers to add metadata to their classes and methods, which makes frameworks like Symfony and Laravel even more powerful and intuitive to use.

These modern features make PHP feel more like a first-class language for today’s web development needs, keeping it relevant and competitive against newer technologies.

3. Laravel’s Continued Dominance

One of PHP's biggest strengths in recent years has been its ecosystem, and no framework has done more for PHP's modern-day relevance than Laravel. Laravel, the most popular PHP framework, has made PHP development faster, easier, and more enjoyable for developers by offering:

• A clean and elegant syntax

• Integrated tools for routing, authentication, and database management

• An extensive library of packages to extend functionality

• A vibrant, active community that continues to push the boundaries of what PHP can do

Laravel's influence has been so strong that many developers who might have otherwise avoided PHP have embraced it because of the framework's productivity benefits. And with each new version, Laravel continues to attract newcomers and experienced developers alike.

4. The PHP Ecosystem is Evolving

Beyond Laravel, the broader PHP ecosystem is alive and evolving. Composer, PHP’s package manager, has become a central part of modern PHP development, providing access to thousands of libraries and tools. With a growing number of high-quality open-source packages, PHP developers have a vibrant ecosystem to draw from when building applications.

Additionally, new tools like RoadRunner (a high-performance PHP application server) and PHP-FPM have redefined how we deploy and run PHP applications, bringing it closer to the speed and scalability of languages like Go or Node.js.

5. Widespread Hosting Support and Easy Deployment

One of the biggest reasons for PHP's resurgence is its simplicity in terms of hosting and deployment. Nearly every web host in the world supports PHP out of the box, and it’s one of the cheapest languages to host due to its widespread use.

随着云原生应用程序和平台（如 AWS、Google Cloud 和 DigitalOcean）的兴起，提供易于设置的 LAMP 堆栈（Linux、Apache、MySQL、PHP），开发人员可以部署 PHP 应用程序快速且低成本。这使得 PHP 对于初创公司、小型企业和自由职业者特别有吸引力，他们希望以最小的麻烦来创建网站或应用程序。

6. PHP 仍然是 Web 的支柱

我们不要忘记，根据 W3Techs 的说法，79% 的网络仍然在 PHP 上运行。虽然较新的语言确实已经普及，但 PHP 仍然是世界上许多最大和访问量最大的网站的首选。凭借如此庞大的安装基础，企业和开发人员继续投资 PHP，因为它熟悉、可靠，并且得到广大开发人员社区的支持。

此外，WordPress、Joomla 和 Drupal 等流行的内容管理系统（支持全球超过三分之一的网站）都是基于 PHP 构建的。这确保了 PHP 继续在数字领域占据重要地位。

7. 向后兼容性和开发人员熟悉度

对于许多经验丰富的开发人员来说，PHP 是众所周知的。它已经存在很长时间了，大多数 Web 开发人员至少都有一些使用它的经验。与更具实验性或快速变化的语言不同，PHP 保持了出色的向后兼容性，这意味着现有的 PHP 应用程序可以更新或扩展，而无需重写大量代码。

这对于拥有需要持续支持和更新的大型遗留系统的企业来说尤其重要。 PHP 的长寿命和向后兼容性使其成为维护旧系统的安全选择，同时还可以使用最新的语言功能对其进行现代化改造。

重生的语言

到 2024 年，PHP 还远未过时。凭借显着的性能改进、现代化的功能、Laravel 等充满活力的框架以及庞大的生态系统，PHP 再次成为开发人员的首选。近年来，它可能被流行的语言所掩盖，但它的可靠性、速度和广泛的托管选项使其成为构建从小型网站到大型 Web 应用程序的实用解决方案。

如果您过去已经放弃了 PHP，那么现在可能是重新考虑它的时候了。凭借其现代化的功能和不断发展的开发者社区，PHP 正在证明它会继续存在 — 也许比以往任何时候都更强大。

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