Why I Still Love PHP in 2025

Every few years, someone declares PHP dead. Yet here we are in 2025, and PHP continues to power a significant portion of the web. Here’s why I still choose PHP for many projects.

Modern PHP is Different

If you haven’t looked at PHP since version 5, you’re in for a surprise. PHP 8.x brings:

• Just-in-Time compilation - Massive performance improvements
• Union types - Better type safety
• Match expressions - Cleaner switch statements
• Named arguments - More readable function calls
• Attributes - Native metadata support

The Ecosystem

PHP has one of the most mature package ecosystems:

composer require laravel/framework

Need authentication? Queue management? Caching? It’s all there, battle-tested, and well-documented.

Deployment Simplicity

PHP deployment remains unmatched in its simplicity:

# That's it. Really.
git pull
composer install

No complex build pipelines, no node_modules the size of a small country, no webpack configuration nightmares.

When to Choose PHP

• Rapid prototyping - Get from idea to production fast
• Content-heavy sites - WordPress, craft CMS, Statamic
• API backends - Laravel or Lumen for REST/GraphQL APIs
• Legacy integration - PHP integrates well with existing systems

PHP isn’t trendy, but it’s reliable, well-paid, and here to stay.