Every so often, the internet announces that PHP is dead. For those outside the world of web development, the recurring announcement may seem baffling. PHP is a programming language that powers a vast portion of the modern web, including many of the websites people use every day. Yet developers have predicted its demise for years. Its endless funeral says as much about internet culture as it does about technology.
The recurring announcement recalls social-media rumours about veteran actor ATM Shamsuzzaman. His name would periodically appear alongside claims of his death, prompting people to question whether the news was true.
In layman’s terms, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a free, open-source, server-side scripting language used primarily for web development. Unlike client-side languages like JavaScript (which run directly inside your web browser), PHP code runs entirely on the web server. The server executes the code to gather data or process logic, and then sends a clean HTML page back to the user’s browser.
PHP has its own recurring obituary. Someone declares it finished; someone else points out that people have been saying the same thing for years. So why does it refuse to disappear?
To understand PHP’s staying power, it helps to understand its origins. PHP began in 1994, when developer Rasmus Lerdorf created tools to monitor visits to his online résumé. It eventually evolved into a general-purpose language for building dynamic websites. Its appeal was practical: developers could process forms, retrieve database records, and generate personalised pages without building everything from scratch.
WordPress – the content management system that powers a huge share of the internet – helped expand PHP’s reach by making website publishing accessible to businesses and individuals. The language became part of an enormous existing ecosystem, and that ecosystem, in turn, became one of the reasons it has endured.
In 2012, Eevee published the influential essay “PHP: a fractal of bad design.” A fractal repeats patterns at different scales. Eevee argued that PHP’s inconsistencies appeared throughout its design, from confusing function names to surprising type conversions. Some criticisms remain relevant. PHP’s type-comparison documentation illustrates why certain operations can produce unexpected results.
But the essay described PHP as it existed at that time, not every version that followed. The language has since introduced substantial improvements, including stronger typing features and changes to error handling. The original critique deserves attention without being treated as the final verdict on modern PHP.
According to W3Techs, its 28 October report estimated that PHP was used by 69.2 per cent of websites whose server-side programming language it could identify. This does not mean 69.2 per cent of every website on the internet; it does mean, however, that PHP remains one of the most widely used languages for building the web.
PHP also continues to receive updates. Its official release archive and supported-versions policy document ongoing development and maintenance. Popularity does not prove superiority. But active development and widespread use make claims of PHP’s literal death difficult to defend.
Imagine replacing a 15-year-old accounting system. Its interface may be terrible, but it contains years of financial records, integrations, and institutional knowledge. Replacing it means migrating data, retraining staff, and risking new problems. Software has similar switching costs. Existing PHP applications may depend on established frameworks, plugins, hosting arrangements, and experienced teams.
That explains persistence, not perfection. Poorly maintained applications remain vulnerable, and unsupported versions still require attention. The same principle applies to other established technologies: commercial adoption depends on economics and compatibility as well as technical merit.
Instead of asking whether PHP is dead, ask whether it is suitable for the job. Is it secure? Can the team maintain it? Does it meet performance requirements? Would migration solve real problems, or merely replace familiar technology with something fashionable?
PHP can lose ground in some areas while remaining useful in others. Its popularity does not make every design decision good, just as its flaws do not make every application obsolete.
Perhaps that is the real lesson of its endless funeral: announcing a technology’s death is an opinion; proving it has become unnecessary requires evidence. The internet keeps writing PHP’s obituary. Meanwhile, the web still has work to do.
