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Let me share this—I've worked in a large recruitment company where we were hiring developers from all around the world, and our business model was pretty much t

Let me share this—I've worked in a large recruitment company where we were hiring developers from all around the world, and our business model was pretty much the same as Crossover's. PHP was always the most in-demand tech for backend development, and of course, this includes frameworks like Laravel and Symfony. So yes, PHP is thriving. It doesn’t mean that other languages are bad or something that’s ridiculous. this is just to answer the "PHP is dead" folks Every language has its place, and they all have their strengths in different contexts.

pier25 2y ago
Just because there's demand doesn't mean it's thriving. Is usage growing? How many new projects are being started with it relatively to other languages? I certainly don't think it's dead but it probably peaked 10-15 years ago.
- ekianjo 2y ago
  having peaked 15 years ago and still being actively used is success. How many JS frameworks survive more than a few years?
  - pier25 2y ago
    I agree about JS. Although jQuery and Angular are very much alive.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  PHP is a mature, established language. There is a large ecosystem of developers that actively use it, and large scale projects built on top of it. It is certainly not dead nor dying. It is just mature. It is probably past its growth phase, nothing wrong with that. There is a very long list of languages that are arguably "better" that will never have a fraction of the success PHP enjoyed, will never see thr growth PHP saw, and will never be as widely used. I don't even like PHP btw. But the HN crowd has some very warped view of how things actually are when it comes to programming languages and how popular/successful they are.
- bojan 2y ago
  I'd even argue that starting a new project in php makes more sense today than it did 10-15 years ago. php now has a stable development cycle and mature frameworks and tools.
egeozcan 2y ago
Honest question, have there been startups which chose PHP recently? To be even more honest, I never thought that PHP was dying, but I often thought it should not be used for new projects. Previous job was in a very PHP-oriented company and it was just a Java alternative, the only advantage being the edit and refresh page dev cycle, and being worse in every other way. Perhaps Laravel could have changed my mind, as most devs there hated Laravel because of the magic (some then proceeded to implement control flows with typed exception throwing so maybe not the greatest bunch to discuss such things)
- NabilChiheb 2y ago
  To answer your question YES https://wellfound.com/startups/tech/php https://wellfound.com/startups/tech/php I believe a good developer chooses technologies based on use case and requirements, not emotions. All technologies can coexist effectively. Personally, I use PHP, Node.js, and other like Python for different scenarios, selecting the best fit for each project's needs.
- paxys 2y ago
  Plenty of "new projects" are really just WordPress deployments, and companies need PHP developers to customize it to fit their business processes. I'd imagine that's the market for 90% of PHP developers being hired today.
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  My project uses PHP and it’s pretty successful. Technology doesn’t matter as much as executing quickly on your ideas.
berkes 2y ago
My point was that "PHP is thriving" cannot be deduced from the pull stats from docker. As the TLA does. You now add an anecdotal evidence to underpin the "PHP is thriving". Which also is not a good argument. That is not to say "haha php ded" - I'm merely and only making the point that in order to show that PHP is doing good, you need good arguments. Not a download stat, that on closer inspection, shows it's not really thriving, nor a story from your last job. I also believe PHP still has its place. But haven't seen any solid evidence or arguments that this is the case and will remain the case.

pier25 2y ago

Just because there's demand doesn't mean it's thriving. Is usage growing? How many new projects are being started with it relatively to other languages? I certainly don't think it's dead but it probably peaked 10-15 years ago.

ekianjo 2y ago
having peaked 15 years ago and still being actively used is success. How many JS frameworks survive more than a few years?
- pier25 2y ago
  I agree about JS. Although jQuery and Angular are very much alive.
surgical_fire 2y ago
PHP is a mature, established language. There is a large ecosystem of developers that actively use it, and large scale projects built on top of it. It is certainly not dead nor dying. It is just mature. It is probably past its growth phase, nothing wrong with that. There is a very long list of languages that are arguably "better" that will never have a fraction of the success PHP enjoyed, will never see thr growth PHP saw, and will never be as widely used. I don't even like PHP btw. But the HN crowd has some very warped view of how things actually are when it comes to programming languages and how popular/successful they are.
bojan 2y ago
I'd even argue that starting a new project in php makes more sense today than it did 10-15 years ago. php now has a stable development cycle and mature frameworks and tools.

egeozcan 2y ago

Honest question, have there been startups which chose PHP recently? To be even more honest, I never thought that PHP was dying, but I often thought it should not be used for new projects. Previous job was in a very PHP-oriented company and it was just a Java alternative, the only advantage being the edit and refresh page dev cycle, and being worse in every other way. Perhaps Laravel could have changed my mind, as most devs there hated Laravel because of the magic (some then proceeded to implement control flows with typed exception throwing so maybe not the greatest bunch to discuss such things)

NabilChiheb 2y ago
To answer your question YES https://wellfound.com/startups/tech/php https://wellfound.com/startups/tech/php I believe a good developer chooses technologies based on use case and requirements, not emotions. All technologies can coexist effectively. Personally, I use PHP, Node.js, and other like Python for different scenarios, selecting the best fit for each project's needs.
paxys 2y ago
Plenty of "new projects" are really just WordPress deployments, and companies need PHP developers to customize it to fit their business processes. I'd imagine that's the market for 90% of PHP developers being hired today.
spiderfarmer 2y ago
My project uses PHP and it’s pretty successful. Technology doesn’t matter as much as executing quickly on your ideas.

berkes 2y ago

My point was that "PHP is thriving" cannot be deduced from the pull stats from docker. As the TLA does. You now add an anecdotal evidence to underpin the "PHP is thriving". Which also is not a good argument. That is not to say "haha php ded" - I'm merely and only making the point that in order to show that PHP is doing good, you need good arguments. Not a download stat, that on closer inspection, shows it's not really thriving, nor a story from your last job. I also believe PHP still has its place. But haven't seen any solid evidence or arguments that this is the case and will remain the case.