It’s 2025, and the tech world is buzzing about serverless architectures, Jamstack, Node.js everything, and the latest bleeding-edge JavaScript frameworks. Yet here I am — still writing, deploying, and maintaining apps in good ol’ PHP.
Am I stuck in the past? Not at all. In fact, I’d argue that PHP is one of the most pragmatic and underrated tools you can use today, especially if you care about performance, simplicity, and control.
Here’s why I still prefer PHP in 2025 — and why you might want to reconsider it too.
It Just Works
I run infrastructure. My focus isn’t chasing frameworks — it’s uptime, stability, and doing more with less. PHP is rock solid. You drop in a .php file, configure your virtual host, and it’s running. No compiling, no containers, no special runtime environments.
All you need to run PHP is a web server and PHP. If it can run Linux, it can run a web server like Apache or NGINX and PHP. Whether that’s a smart toaster or a $100k enterprise-grade server.
Also, if frameworks are your thing, there are some great PHP frameworks out there that can help you quickly write apps.
Massive Ecosystem and Compatibility
PHP runs everywhere. Nearly every shared hosting provider, control panel, and CMS still supports it. That kind of ubiquity matters when you manage infrastructure for clients at all technical levels.
Whether I’m building something custom or tweaking existing systems like WHMCS, Blesta, WordPress, or WebsiteBaker — PHP is the common language.
Bonus: most legacy systems still use it, and I don’t need to rewrite everything in Python or Go to modernize them.
Mature, Stable, and Secure (Yes, Really)
Modern PHP — especially versions 8.1 and up — is a different beast than what people remember from the early 2000s. It now includes:
- Strong typing
- Native attributes (annotations)
- JIT compilation
- Performance that rivals Node and even Go in some scenarios
Security updates are regular, community support is strong, and many libraries are actively maintained. If you’re writing modern PHP, you’re writing clean, maintainable, and secure code.
You Control the Stack
As someone who runs a hosting company, I like having full control. I don’t want to spin up Node daemons or manage 12 different services for one app. With PHP:
- I can run everything under FPM pools for resource isolation.
- Logs are easily centralized.
- Updates don’t break production apps due to breaking runtime changes.
PHP plays really well with traditional hosting and modern infrastructure — and doesn’t force me into an ecosystem I don’t want.
It’s Ideal for the Web
PHP was built for the web. Everything about it — from how it handles requests, sessions, and forms — makes it a natural fit for websites and APIs.
Unlike general-purpose languages that were retrofitted into web development, PHP was made for this. And in my experience, that means less friction and less time wasted reinventing the wheel.
It’s Not Dead — It’s Evolving
The PHP community is alive and thriving. Laravel continues to innovate. Symfony powers enterprise-grade apps. New frameworks like Mezzio and Slim focus on performance and microservices.
And let’s not forget that WordPress, which powers over 40% of the web, still runs entirely on PHP.
So no — PHP isn’t dead. It’s quietly powering the web, while developers argue on Reddit about the best way to do the same thing in six JavaScript frameworks.
Final Thoughts
I’m not saying PHP is the best tool for every job. But when it comes to building fast, reliable, maintainable systems for the web — especially in a hosting or infrastructure environment — PHP continues to deliver.
If you haven’t touched it in a while, give it another shot. You might just find that the language you thought was outdated is more modern than ever — and more practical than most alternatives.
And that’s why I still prefer PHP in 2025. Maybe you will too.