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07/06/2026 06:45am

History of PHP from a resume tracking script to a global web standard

History of PHP: From a Resume Tool to the Backend of 70% of Websites

#Laravel

#WordPress

#PHP

PHP has been an essential tool for web development for over 30 years. Today, more than 70% of all websites globally—including major platforms like Facebook, Wikipedia, and over 40% of websites powered by WordPress—rely on PHP for their backend operations.

This article covers the history of PHP, explaining how it started and how it has developed into its current version.

1994: The Origin of PHP as a Resume Tracking Tool

In 1994, Rasmus Lerdorf, a Danish-Canadian software engineer, needed a tool to track how many people were viewing his online resume.

He wrote a series of scripts in C to fetch data from web forms and connect to databases. He initially named this tool "Personal Home Page Tools." After further development and public release under the name PHP/FI (Forms Interpreter), the acronym PHP became commonly known as "Personal Home Page."

Web Development Challenges at the Time: Creating dynamic websites that displayed data based on user interaction was difficult. Developers had to write C or Perl scripts via CGI, which was complex and prone to system crashes. Rasmus’s tool, which could be embedded directly into HTML, became popular quickly because of its simplicity.

Rasmus Lerdorf.webp

1997: The Evolution of PHP into a Programming Language

After its public release, the first version of PHP/FI faced many limitations. The language structure was incomplete and lacked efficient loop commands.

The Contribution of the Zend Team to the PHP Core (1997)

Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, students at an Israeli university, found limitations in PHP/FI while working on a university project. They contacted Rasmus to rewrite the parser from scratch.

This development resulted in PHP 3, which marked the beginning of the Zend Engine (named after Zeev and Andi). The Zend Engine remains the core execution engine of PHP today. Along with this update, the meaning of PHP was changed to a recursive acronym: PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

Enterprise Growth with PHP 4 and PHP 5

  • PHP 4 (2000): This version transitioned to Zend Engine 1.0, improving system stability and support for larger websites.

  • PHP 5 (2004): A major upgrade that introduced full support for Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). This structural change became the foundation for developing modern frameworks and Content Management Systems (CMS).

Key Factors Behind the Global Popularity of PHP

Between 1995 and 2005, PHP grew rapidly due to three main factors:

  • The LAMP Stack and PHP: PHP integrated efficiently with Linux, Apache, and MySQL. All components were open-source and free to use, which significantly lowered web development costs.

  • Shared Hosting Infrastructure for PHP: Website hosting was affordable during this period, and PHP could run on almost any server. Developers could deploy websites by uploading code files via FTP without complex compilation or system configuration, unlike Java or Python.

  • CMS Ecosystems Built with PHP: The accessible structure of PHP led to the creation of popular content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, allowing non-technical users to build websites without writing code.

Past Criticisms and Performance Improvements in PHP

Because PHP was easy to learn and lacked strict structural rules in its early stages, many developers wrote unorganized code. This led to security vulnerabilities and performance issues, causing the language to face criticism regarding its design.

Additional Information on the PHP 6 Project: The development team previously attempted to create PHP 6 to bring native Unicode support to the core language. However, due to persistent technical difficulties, the project was canceled. The team skipped version 6 to avoid confusion and moved directly to developing PHP 7.

Major Performance Upgrades in PHP 7 and PHP 8

  • PHP 7 (2015): This version upgraded the internal execution engine to Zend Engine 3.0. As a result, PHP 7 ran twice as fast as version 5.6 and reduced memory consumption significantly.

  • PHP 8 (2020 - Present): Introduced JIT (Just-In-Time) Compilation, which improves execution speeds for heavy mathematical computations. It also added modern features like Named Arguments, Attributes, and Union Types to make the code more secure and standardized.

Modern Tools and the Current Status of PHP

The modern PHP ecosystem has changed significantly, offering higher security and better structure through several tools:

  • Laravel Framework in PHP: A highly popular web framework that organizes PHP code into a secure, structured format suitable for enterprise-level applications.

  • Modern PHP Ecosystem: The introduction of Composer for dependency management, PHPStan for static code analysis, and a shift toward Strongly Typed coding practices have greatly improved code reliability.

Summary of Reasons to Use and Study PHP

Studying and using PHP helps developers understand the core operational structure of the internet. Because it is easy to deploy, fast to set up, and aligns well with business needs that require a fast Time to Market, PHP remains a stable and reliable tool for web development today.

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