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Technology · Web Development

PHP

php.net

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. Created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994, PHP has since become one of the most widely used server-side programming languages. It can be embedded into HTML code, or used in combination with various web template systems, web content management systems, and web frameworks. PHP code is usually processed on a web server by a PHP interpreter, which outputs the resulting web page. Its ease of use for beginners, along with its powerful features for advanced programmers, has contributed to its popularity. While it has faced criticism over the years, modern PHP with frameworks like Laravel and Symfony has evolved to support robust, scalable web application development.

PHP belongs toProgramming languagescategory.

770websites

use it — 30.1% of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months

#1of 9

tools in its category seen in our scans (we recognize 30)

396public pages

on UptimeCard — open any of them to see how that site is doing

Used on 30.1% of the websites we scan — and those sites load in 4.5 s, about the same as every other site (4.3 s). Installing it does not make a site noticeably slower.

29.24% of all websites we track run PHP▲ 0.06 points since 20 Sep

At a glance

UptimeCard's own scans and tests of 2,555 websites · refreshed weekly

How PHP sites scoreout of 100 · hover or tap a score for details

48PerformancePooraverage site: 5089AccessibilityGoodaverage site: 8993Best practicesGoodaverage site: 9392SEOGoodaverage site: 92

Page load time

Loads about as fast as the average site

PHP sites
4.5 s
All sites
4.3 s

Most PHP sites load in 3.2–6.5 s. Home page weight: 3.3 MB vs 3.3 MB for all sites. 361 public sites measured.

Where are they hosted?

Mostly Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare

  • Amazon Web Services26%
  • Cloudflare22%
  • Fastly8%
  • Google Cloud5%
  • Other38%
United States 49%Canada 25%Germany 6%

Who uses it?

Educational Resources sites use PHP 1.6× more than average

Technology and Software55%
Business Services15%
Educational Resources1.6× avg8%
Software as a Service (SaaS)5%

Share of 396 classified public sites. “× average” compares with all 961 public sites.

Browser-security check

38% of graded sites pass

39of 103 score B or better

Rates each site’s own security settings, not PHP. 103 public sites graded so far.

How PHP sites are built

Closest partners. The number says how many times more often the tool runs on PHP sites than on an average website. Hover a partner for its share of sites.

MySQL3×WordPress3×Yoast SEO3×Elementor3×Twitter Emoji (Twemoji)3×jQuery UI2×Apache HTTP Server2×

Stacks we see most. Tools that tend to run together with PHP on the same websites. The percentage is the share of all 770 PHP sites that run the whole stack.

11 stacks · swipe, drag or use the arrows
#1

PHP + WordPress + Yoast SEO + Elementor

6.8%52 of 770 sites
#2

PHP + Varnish + Drupal

4.3%33 of 770 sites
#3

PHP + WordPress + Marko

4.3%33 of 770 sites
#4

PHP + WordPress + jsDelivr + cdnjs

3%23 of 770 sites
#5

PHP + WordPress + Contact Form 7 + Site Kit

3%23 of 770 sites
#6

PHP + Yoast SEO + WordPress Block Editor

3.5%27 of 770 sites
#7

PHP + jsDelivr + jQuery CDN

2.7%21 of 770 sites
#8

PHP + Bootstrap + jQuery CDN

2.3%18 of 770 sites
#9

PHP + Bootstrap + Drupal

2.1%16 of 770 sites
#10

PHP + jsDelivr + Drupal

2.1%16 of 770 sites
#11

PHP + Drupal + Fastly

2.1%16 of 770 sites

Usually installed alongside

The bigger the bubble, the more of the 770 PHP sites also run the tool. Colour shows what the tool does. Hover or tap a bubble for details.

Google Tag Manager68%Google Analytics66%Linkedin Insight Tag23%Facebook Pixel19%Yoast SEO30%DoubleClick Floodlight17%Microsoft Advertising14%OneTrust17%Elementor15%HubSpot14%
Tag managerAnalyticsSearch visibilityAdvertisingCookie consentPage builderMarketing

Similar tools in its category

Programming languages: 30 tools known, 9 seen in our scans

Node.js471 sitesAlternativeJava129 sitesAlternativeTypeScript72 sitesAlternativeGraphQL42 sitesAlternativeRuby27 sitesAlternativeScala4 sitesAlternativePerl1 sitesAlternativeErlang0 sitesAlternativePython82 sitesUsed together

How websites combine PHP with other tools

Relationships found on the websites that use it, from the same map status pages show.

Needs another tool 186Built on a platform 97Complements another tool 32Integrates with another 27Overlaps with another 22

Websites using PHP

770 websites use PHP: 30.1% of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months. A selection is shown below.

Scores are out of 100: P Performance · A Accessibility · B Best practices · S SEO. Green 80+, yellow 65–79, orange 50–64, red below 50. The dot shows whether our last scan found the site failing (red) or not (green); Red, amber or blue: an active incident on the site's status page (outage, degraded, maintenance) or a failing scan; amber also means a certificate ending within 30 days. Hover the dot for details.

Questions about PHP

How many websites use PHP?
We found PHP on 770 of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months (30.1%). 396 of them have a public status page.
What is PHP often used with?
Among the websites we scan, PHP is often found alongside MySQL (61.7% of its sites), WordPress (60.1% of its sites), Yoast SEO (29.9% of its sites).
What are the alternatives to PHP?
Other programming languages tools we recognize include Node.js, Java, Python, TypeScript.

Is your website built with PHP?

UptimeCard checks it around the clock, tells you the minute it stops answering, and gives your visitors a status page.

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