PHP: The Web's Workhorse Language Timeline

PHP: The Web's Workhorse Language 24

1994 Rasmus Lerdorf writes the first PHP CGI tools Personal home page tracking scripts become the seed of PHP Rasmus Lerdorf writes a set of CGI binaries in C to track visits to his online résumé. These tools later became known as Personal Home Page Tools.
1995 Rasmus Lerdorf announces Personal Home Page Tools Public release of PHP Tools on Usenet Lerdorf announces the PHP Tools source code publicly on Usenet, opening the project to outside users and contributors.
1997 PHP/FI 2.0 released Form Interpreter adds a fuller scripting language PHP/FI 2.0 combines the Personal Home Page tools with a form interpreter and database support, and it gains a growing user base.
1998 PHP 3.0 released A rewrite by Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski PHP 3.0 is a rewrite of the parser by Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski and is the first version that resembles modern PHP. The name changes to the recursive acronym PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.
1999 Zend Engine and Zend Technologies emerge Gutmans and Suraski build a new core for PHP Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski begin work on the Zend Engine, a new scripting core for PHP, and found the company Zend around it.
2000 PHP 4.0 released Zend Engine powers the language PHP 4.0 is the first release built on the Zend Engine, with better performance and session support. It drives PHP's spread across shared web hosting.
2003 WordPress first released A PHP blogging tool that grows into the web's largest CMS WordPress is first released as a PHP-based blogging platform. It later becomes the most widely used content management system, which keeps PHP in constant use.
2004 Facebook launches, built in PHP The Facebook site starts on PHP Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook from his Harvard dorm, written in PHP. The site's growth makes PHP's performance a topic of serious engineering work.
2004 PHP 5.0 released Zend Engine 2 and a real object model PHP 5.0 introduces Zend Engine 2 with a rewritten object model, exceptions, and PDO-era database practices. It makes object-oriented PHP the norm.
2009 PHP 5.3 released with namespaces and closures Language features that enable modern frameworks PHP 5.3 adds namespaces, closures and late static binding, which later frameworks and autoloading standards rely on.
2010 Unicode-focused PHP 6 abandoned The project drops its long-running native Unicode effort After years of work on native Unicode support, the PHP developers abandon the PHP 6 branch. The version number is skipped, and PHP 7 is later released instead.
2010 Facebook announces HipHop for PHP A PHP-to-C++ compiler cuts server load Facebook announces HipHop for PHP, a source transformer that compiles PHP to C++. It starts a performance race that leads to HHVM and eventually PHP 7.
2011 Laravel first released Taylor Otwell's framework reshapes PHP development Taylor Otwell releases the first version of the Laravel framework. It becomes the most popular PHP framework and a driver of the language's modern image.
2012 Composer brings dependency management to PHP Nils Adermann and Jordi Boggiano create the package manager Composer and its Packagist repository give PHP a standard dependency manager. They make shared libraries and frameworks easy to install.
2012 PHP 5.4 released Traits, short array syntax and a built-in web server PHP 5.4 adds traits, the short array syntax and a built-in development web server, and removes legacy features such as magic quotes.
2015 PHP 7.0 released The PHPNG engine roughly doubles speed PHP 7.0 arrives with the PHPNG engine rewrite, scalar type declarations and a large performance gain over PHP 5. It revitalises the language.
2019 PHP 7.4 released Typed properties, arrow functions and preloading PHP 7.4 adds typed class properties, arrow functions and opcache preloading, and it is the last release of the 7 series with major language additions.
2020 PHP 8.0 released with JIT compiler Attributes, union types, match and named arguments PHP 8.0 introduces a JIT compiler, attributes, union types, named arguments, the match expression and the nullsafe operator.
2021 PHP source repository compromised with a backdoor Malicious commits lead PHP to move development to GitHub Two malicious commits are pushed to the php-src repository on the project's own git server. The team then moves the canonical repository to GitHub.
2021 PHP Foundation established Funding for core PHP developers The PHP Foundation is announced to pay core contributors and secure the language's long-term maintenance, with backing from JetBrains and other companies.
2021 PHP 8.1 released with enums and fibers Enumerations, readonly properties and fibers arrive PHP 8.1 adds native enums, readonly properties, fibers and first-class callable syntax.
2024 PHP 8.4 released with property hooks Property hooks and asymmetric visibility PHP 8.4 introduces property hooks and asymmetric visibility, plus new array functions and lazy objects.
2025 PHP 8.5 released with the pipe operator Pipe syntax and a new URI extension PHP 8.5 adds the pipe operator (|>) for chaining function calls, along with a new URI extension.
2026 PHP2Shell: leaked critical PHP RCE flaws patched CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 leak a day before the embargo ends Details and an exploit tool for two critical remote-code-execution flaws (CVSS 9.2) leaked on 20 October, a day before the planned patches. PHP released fixes in 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35 on 21 October, and attacks were reported the same day.