PHP Gains Official Runtime Status with FrankenPHP, Signaling a Potential Shift in the Language’s Trajectory
In a move that could reshape the future of PHP progress, the PHP Foundation has officially adopted FrankenPHP as a supported runtime. This announcement, made on June 8, 2025, addresses long-standing challenges in containerizing and deploying PHP applications, notably those reliant on older versions like PHP 7.1.
For years, developers have struggled with the complexities of configuring Dockerfiles to accommodate PHP-FPM and Supervisor, especially when maintaining legacy projects. FrankenPHP aims to simplify this process dramatically, offering a streamlined approach to containerization and new execution models while maintaining full compatibility with the vast existing PHP codebase. The project’s origins lie within the PHP community, gaining traction for its ability to resolve common deployment hurdles.
The adoption by the PHP Foundation, a non-profit association dedicated to the development and promotion of PHP, lends important credibility to frankenphp. The Foundation, based in Portland, Oregon, was established in 2022 and is funded through donations and sponsorships. This official endorsement is expected to accelerate the project’s development and adoption within the broader PHP ecosystem.
Despite thes advancements, the article acknowledges the persistent negative perception surrounding PHP. Created initially by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 as a set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) binaries, PHP has historically faced criticism for its inconsistent design and perceived lack of rigor. This has resulted in its exclusion from influential programming literature, such as “Masterminds of Programming” by O’Reilly Media (published in 2009) and “The Tao of Programming” by Geoffrey James (1987), and limited recognition of its creator, Rasmus lerdorf, within academic circles.
The article highlights a 2012 interview with Lerdorf published by IEEE’s “computer Magazine,” both in written (link) and video (link) formats. In this interview, Lerdorf emphasized the importance of relinquishing control to foster community-driven growth, stating, “I learned a bit along the way that, for this to grow, I had to give up control of PHP-I had to let other people have some control… It’s not just them contributing to my project-it becomes our project, and that really changed the nature of PHP.”
FrankenPHP represents a continuation of this collaborative spirit, offering a potential path forward for PHP in the modern landscape of cloud-native applications and Kubernetes orchestration. Further details on FrankenPHP can be found on its official website: FrankenPHP.
Cover photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash.
