PHP Turns 30

This year marks a monumental milestone in the world of web development: PHP turns 30 years old. What began in 1995 as a small set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) binaries written in C by Rasmus Lerdorf has grown into one of the most widely used programming languages on the web.

A Quick Trip Down Memory Lane

PHP, which originally stood for Personal Home Page, quickly evolved beyond its humble beginnings. By the time PHP 3.0 was released in 1998, it had adopted the recursive name PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor and had already gained a sizable following.

Some key moments over the years:

• 1995: Rasmus Lerdorf releases PHP Tools.
• 1998: PHP 3.0 introduces a more extensible architecture and a cleaner syntax.
• 2004: PHP 5 brings in powerful object-oriented programming capabilities.
• 2015: PHP 7 revolutionizes performance and memory usage.
• 2020: PHP 8 introduces JIT compilation and many modern language features.

From powering early blogs and personal websites to major platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Magento, PHP has quietly been the backbone of the web.

Still Relevant in a Changing Web

Despite new languages and frameworks entering the scene, PHP remains incredibly relevant:

• WordPress, which powers over 40% of all websites, is built on PHP.
• Modern frameworks like Laravel and Symfony have reinvigorated PHP development.
• The PHP community continues to be active, pushing out regular updates and innovations.

According to recent stats, PHP still ranks among the top 10 most popular programming languages worldwide.

What’s Next for PHP?

The future of PHP looks promising. With the recent releases of PHP, developers are seeing improvements in:

• Performance and type safety
• Cleaner syntax with attributes and enums
• A stronger push toward modern development practices

The community around PHP has also matured. Conferences, meetups, and active online forums continue to drive innovation and support.

A Thank You to the PHP Community

Thirty years is a long time in tech, and PHP’s endurance is a testament to its adaptability, community, and real-world effectiveness. So here’s to PHP — three decades of powering the web, and still going strong.