PHP Web Development Trends

PHP Trends

PHP is a constantly growing technology today. Therefore, the team at iCommuneTech has decided to delve into the latest PHP trends in web development, in the current post.

We will start looking at the emerging PHP trends.

Emerging Trends in PHP Development

Zend’s PHP Landscape Report has described PHP trends in web development in 2024.

According to the report, the following types of PHP applications will be built or deployed by PHP developers in 2024.

    1. Services or APIs – 78.06%

    2. Internal business applications – 64.14%

    3. CMS – 44.94%

    4. Ecommerce – 35.65%

    5. CRM/ERM – 29.75%

    6. Mobile Backend – 28.90%

    7. Modern or Legacy System – 14.98%

PHP is trendy in 2024, thanks to its horizontal scaling capability. PHP lets developers spin up more instances when they want to scale up the application. Cloud services help against provisioning large servers when applications deploy on the cloud. It proves cost-effective when you want to scale down the applications by imposing charges based on usage only.

Cloud-based PHP Web Development Trends:

A study has found that cloud services and PHP go hand-to-hand well because 78.9% of websites and apps were developed using PHP and cloud frameworks in 2019. Thus, cloud-based web development has PHP as a preferred technology.

PHP Trends in IoT Application Development:

IoT is an emerging technology, and PHP plays a significant role in it. PHP can help IoT developers in the following ways.

Backend Development in IoT Solutions

    1. Server-side Logic in IoT Solutions- PHP provides server-side logic in IoT application development. It manages communication between the central server and IoT client devices. PHP can process incoming data and trigger actions in response to incoming information/requests.

    2. IoT Database Interactions- PHP helps IoT applications in database interactions. PHP can interact with IoT data for storage and retrieval from IoT devices.

IoT Data Processing & Analysis

-> Data Transformation- PHP assists in transforming and processing data received from various IoT devices. It involves data formatting in a standardized structure or converting data in the appropriate format to store or analyze processes.

Web Services & APIs in IoT App

    1. RESTful API Development for IoT Apps- PHP helps in RESTful API development. The RESTful APIs facilitate communications among IoT devices and the rest of the components in the IoT system. API defines rules for how IoT devices can request or send data to the server.

    2. JSON & XML Parsing- JSON and XML are standard data formats in IoT. PHP has a built-in function for parsing JSON and XML data.

PHP Trends in Smart Boat Development

BotMan 2.0 is a messaging library that helps PHP developers create a robot chatbot, and it’s available in the PHP Laravel package. Similarly, CodeIgniter and other PHP frameworks empower the PHP community to create PHP scripts to develop customized chatbots. This trend is going on in the current market.

PHP Development Tools and Trends

PHP development tools are helpful in code writing, code management, testing, debugging, etc., and they also provide various benefits to PHP developers. For example, boost productivity, enhance code quality, and improve code efficiency. Let’s see trends in the use of standard PHP development tools.

PHP IDE:

The following IDEs (Integrated Development Environment tools) are trendy in the present market.

    1. phpStorm.

    2. NetBeans.

    3. Eclipse PDT .

PHP Code Editors:

People are looking for great features in their PHP code editors, including syntax highlighting, code folding, and essential code completion. The following PHP code editors are trending in the market.

    1. Visual Studio Code.

    2. Atom.

    3. Sublime Text.

PHP Debugger:

PHP debuggers help developers to detect the error or bugs in the code and resolve them. Debuggers inspect variables and trace the execution of the program.

Recently, PHP Xdebug has been a trendy debugger.

PHP Package Manager:

PHP package manager simplifies the management of PHP dependencies. Moreover, it automates the installation, updating processes, and deleting unused libraries.

Note: PHP Composer is an excellent tool and is trendy as a PHP package manager.

PHP Testing Frameworks:

PHP testing frameworks allow developers to write and execute PHP testing. The most trendy testing frameworks for PHP programmers are:

    1. PHPUnit

    2. Codeception .

PHP Performance Profiler:

They recognize bottlenecks and measure execution times.

  • Xdebug
  • Blackfire
  • PHP Code Quality Tools:

    The code quality tools help developers to analyze the adherence of PHP code to the coding standards.

      1. PHPMD

      2. PHPCodeSniffer .

    PHP Data Management Tools:

    Some PHP database management tools execute queries and inspect data. phpMyAdmin provides a graphical UI to manage the database.

    PHP Deployment Tools

    PHP deployment tools facilitate developers in configuration management, environment setup, and code deployment on the server. These tools automate the deployment process.

  • Capistrano
  • Deployer
  • PHP Deployment Trends

    In the Zend PHP Landscape Report, 48.84% of respondents have preferred on-premise deployment. 39.34% favored AWS and 22.48% other service providers.

    PHP Programming Trends

    With each new version release, PHP is evolving to keep pace with emerging technologies and trends in the market. Therefore, you may find the following programming trends in the PHP landscape.

  • The just-in-time compilation, union types, enhanced error management, etc., make it competitive.
  • Built-in security features, including password hashing function, input validation, dependency scanning, etc.
  • AI integration with PHP-ML libraries brings AI/ML technologies to the PHP platform.
  • PHP supports Microservices architecture for modular design and API-driven development.
  • Serverless PHP and OpenFass enable serverless execution of PHP functions.
  • Laravel and Symfony, like PHP frameworks, provide PWA (Progressive Web App)-specific tools and libraries to bridge the gap between the web and mobiles.
  • PHP offers TextRank, spaCy, and Stanford NLP tools and libraries to create PHP-based UIs leveraging NLP tools and integrating libraries to extract the meaning and intent of voice search queries.
  • PHP Version Adoption Trends

    The Zend PHP Landscape Report has established that the PHP developer community always prefers the latest PHP version to reap the most benefits of emerging and enhanced technologies.

    They saw the following PHP version adoption trends in their survey:

      1. PHP 8.2 – 57.17%

      2. PHP 8.1 – 53.67%

      3. PHP 8.0 – 34.79%

      4. PHP 7.4 – 47.73%

      5. PHP 7.3 – 16.08%

      6. PHP 7.0 – 18.36%

      7. PHP 5.6 & earlier – 15.91%

    Popular PHP Frameworks and Trends

    We have discussed enough in the previous post on PHP frameworks. The following PHP frameworks are trendy in the market.

      1. PHP Laravel

      2. PHP CodeIgniter

      3. Symfony

      4. Yii 2

      5. CakePHP

      6. Phalcon

      7. FuelPHP

      8. PHPixie

      9. Zend

    According to ISHIR,

  • Laravel -58% of market share
  • Symfony – 14%
  • CodeIgniter – 3%
  • So, Laravel is an obvious winner among the selection of PHP frameworks.

    Statistical Data for PHP Trends in Industrial Framework Usage

    According to Devabit, industrial usage of top PHP frameworks is as follows:

    -> Laravel:

  • Computer, electronics, and technology – 5.31%
  • Science and education – 3.14%
  • Law and government – 2.2%
  • Art and entertainment – 2.08%
  • Others – 87.30%
  • -> Symfony:

  • Science and education – 11.07%
  • Vehicles – 4.21%
  • Computer, electronics, and technology – 3.92%
  • Business and consumer service – 2.55%
  • Others – 78.24%
  • -> Yii:

  • Science and education – 7.39%
  • Computer, electronics, and technology – 5.64%
  • Arts and entertainment – 4.78%
  • Law and government – 3.80%
  • Others – 78.38%
  • -> CodeIgniter:

  • Science and education – 5.42%
  • Computer, electronics, and technology – 4.58%
  • Law and government – 3.53%
  • Arts and entertainment – 1.98%
  • Others – 84.50%
  • Best Practices for PHP Development in 2024

    In the end, the PHP development team at iCommuneTech has suggested some best practices for PHP development trends in 2024.

    PHP Framework:

    We learned throughout the post that PHP Laravel is the most used and trendy PHP framework to justify small, medium, and large PHP development projects. However, you can select your framework based on your requirements and budget but try to use the modern and the latest PHP frameworks such as Symfony and Laminas.

    Microservice Architecture:

    Microservices are for enhanced resource utilization and flexibility in PHP programming and PHP designing. Use Lumen and Slim frameworks for PHP microservice architecture.

    DevOps:

    Modern PHP DevOps are using Docker, Kubernetes, and Jenkins DevOps tools. They automate the PHP application deployment process and streamline workflow.

    Cloud Technology:

    AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure are the best bets for your cloud technology requirements in cloud-native PHP development.

    Encryption Technologies for Security:

    Embarrass column-level or full-disk encryption technology in your PHP development projects to ensure data security.

    Libraries:

    Keep PHP and third-party libraries up to date. Use Composer and Dependant to automate dependency updates.

    Local Server Environment:

    Create a local server environment using MAMP to set up a local server for your PHP design and programming.

    Testing Frameworks:

    PHPUnit is an excellent choice for writing your Unit tests for PHP app testing.

    SOLID Principles:

    Adhere to SOLID (Single responsibility, Open/close, Liskov substitution, Interface segregation, Dependency inversion) principles to ensure your code remains modular, reusable, and maintainable by embracing OOP.

    Wrapping It Up:

    We have seen most of the PHP web development trends for 2024 in the current post. iCommuneTech is an eminent PHP development company with an impeccable, experienced, and expert PHP development team.

    Our expertise is in various aspects of PHP development, such as frameworks, cloud technology, security, UX, UI design, DevOps services, Microservices, containers, and many more.

    We will guide you for your next PHP development project with valuable suggestions and free-of-charge quotes with market-competitive rates and enough post-development services, including maintenance packages.

    Let’s exchange a few words to keep the rail on the track!