Guide

Developing Web Applications with PHP

PHP Development

Developing web applications with PHP is one of the most effective ways to build secure, scalable, and observable solutions. And, with PHP powering nearly 75% of the internet, including major platforms and enterprise applications, understanding the complexities of PHP app development is a valuable skill for any developer team.

In this resource, we explore key strategies for PHP app development – from architecture and lifecycle planning to deployment, security, observability, and scalability – so you can create applications that are optimized for performance and future growth.

Read along, or jump to the section that interests you the most.

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Learn the Basics of PHP

Is PHP still relevant? Yes. PHP is one of the most popular languages for building web applications. Known for its simplicity and flexibility, it allows developers to create everything from small websites to enterprise-level platforms. 

Before diving into PHP app development, it’s important to understand what PHP is and why it remains a cornerstone of the modern web ecosystem.

What Is PHP?

To start – what is PHP?

PHP is an open source scripting language widely used for web development. It runs on the server side, meaning it processes code before sending the output to the user’s browser. Originally released in 1995, PHP has evolved into a powerful tool and is used in millions of major websites, including Wikipedia, Vimeo, Etsy, WordPress, Drupal, and others.

Key features of PHP include:

  • Ease of Use – PHP’s syntax is beginner-friendly and integrates seamlessly with HTML.
  • Flexibility – PHP supports multiple programming paradigms, including procedural, functional, and object-oriented programming (OOP).
  • Extensibility – PHP offers numerous extensions and libraries for tasks like database interaction and image processing.
  • Community Support – PHP’s large developer community ensures continuous updates and abundant learning resources.

Explore the following resources to learn more about PHP basics and ongoing changes in the ecosystem.

Additional Resources

How to Learn PHP

Whether you are a new coder or seasoned developer, the first step to PHP web app development is to learn PHP. 

The best place to begin is by familiarizing yourself with the language’s core concepts, such as syntax, variables, and control structures. Once you are comfortable with the basics, you can move into functions and PHP OOP to create more structured and reusable code.

Hands-on practice is essential, and building small PHP projects for beginners, like a form or a simple blog, will reinforce what you’ve learned while giving you confidence to tackle more complex tasks. As you progress, you can explore PHP extensions and advanced features to expand the language’s capabilities and integrate with other technologies, such as OpenAI PHP integrations.

Structured learning resources, such as online PHP courses or PHP tutorials, will provide guidance and practical exercises. After completing these courses, you can validate your skillset and demonstrate your abilities to potential employers by becoming a PHP Certified Engineer. Additionally, by engaging with the PHP community, you can access the most up-to-date practices while keeping up with new developments.

Take Your PHP Web App Development Skills to the Next Level

Choose from free, on-demand, and instructor-led courses for PHP developers of any skill level and examining topics across the PHP language.

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Architecture Considerations for Developing Web Applications With PHP

PHP architecture plays a critical role in scalability, maintainability, and overall performance of your final application. These include choosing a monolith or microservices architecture, choosing to use a framework or content management system (CMS), and establishing a dependency management strategy.

Monolithic vs. Microservices

In a PHP monolith, all components are tightly integrated into a single codebase, simplifying initial development and deployment. While the traditional choice, monolithic architectures can become challenging as the application grows. Updates often require redeploying the entire system, and scaling specific components independently is nearly impossible.

PHP microservices architecture is a more modern alternative. It breaks an application into smaller, independent services that communicate through APIs. Each service is responsible for a specific function, allowing teams to develop, deploy, and scale components individually. This modular approach improves flexibility, supports PHP continuous delivery, and makes it easier to adopt new technologies without disrupting your entire system. However, the tradeoff is that microservices often introduce DevOps complexity and orchestration challenges. Depending on your team’s skill level, and without third-party support, this could represent a significant blocker.

Learn More About PHP Monolith vs. Microservices Architecture

Frameworks for PHP App Development

A framework provides a structured foundation for developing web applications with PHP. They offer reusable components, libraries, and design patterns that streamline coding and enforce best practices. 

Frameworks (like Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter, Laminas, and CakePHP) are ideal for custom applications where flexibility, scalability, and control over architecture are important. They allow developers to build tailored solutions without extra features, making them a good fit for complex business logic or unique workflows.

Additional Resources

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Hands-On Support for Framework Migrations

Zend provides comprehensive support for upgrades, migrations, and modernization projects involving the top PHP frameworks.

Laravel Migrations

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Symfony Migrations

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CodeIgniter Migrations

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CakePHP Migrations

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CMS for PHP App Development

Another option for developing web applications with PHP is to use a CMS. CMS (such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla) come with pre-built functionality for describing and managing content. 

CMS platforms are designed for speed and simplicity, enabling users to create and manage websites without extensive coding. In general, CMS web applications are best suited for content-heavy uses like blogs, news portals, or similar where rapid deployment and ease of use are top priorities.

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Dependency Management

Applications rely on PHP dependencies like external libraries, frameworks, and packages to function. While these components accelerate development and add many helpful features, they can also introduce application complexity.

A well-planned approach to dependency management should use tools like Composer to ensure consistent package versions, simplify updates, and support more modular designs. This is especially important if you choose to use a PHP microservices architecture, where each service may have its own dependency tree and requires isolation to prevent cascading failures.

Learn More About PHP Dependency Management

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Planning for the PHP Lifecycle During PHP App Development

The PHP release cycle moves quickly, and understanding the language’s lifecycle is required for developing web applications with PHP.

Each PHP version typically has a four-year lifecycle: two years of active community support (including bug fixes and security patches), followed by two years of community security-only support. After that, the version reaches end of life (EOL), meaning no community patches or updates will be provided.

Planning for this lifecycle during PHP app development will go a long way in optimizing your PHP web applications. It will help you avoid rushed migrations, reduce technical debt, and maintain compliance with security standards.

Risks of Deploying EOL PHP in Production

Deploying EOL PHP versions in your applications introduces significant risks. Without support – either from the community or via third-party PHP long term support (LTS) providers – any newly discovered PHP vulnerabilities remain unpatched. Your application is exposed to exploits and data breaches. For organizations in highly regulated industries, this can also result in compliance violations.

In addition to security concerns, EOL versions often lack compatibility with modern libraries and frameworks, leading to broken functionality and increased maintenance costs.

Performance degradation is another issue. Deploying EOL PHP versions means you miss out on optimizations included with the latest PHP version, impacting user experience and infrastructure efficiency. Annual feature releases of PHP improve performance by an average of 10%. The cumulative effect of being several versions of PHP behind can mean you’re spending more money and using more resources than is necessary.

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Upgrading PHP Safely and Efficiently

Upgrading PHP becomes far less disruptive when you plan for the PHP lifecycle as a part of your development strategy. 

By aligning your application roadmap with the PHP release cycle, you can anticipate version changes and schedule updates before they become urgent. This makes it much easier to allocate resources, test compatibility, and implement incremental upgrades rather than rushing through major transitions under pressure. Planning also ensures dependencies and frameworks remain compatible, which reduces the risk of breaking changes and downtime. 

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Extend the Lifespan of Mission-Critical PHP With Zend

Secure ZendPHP runtimes and Zend PHP LTS extends the lifespan of EOL PHP versions at least two years beyond the community support timeline. Upgrade on your schedule, maintain compliance standards, and access 24/7/365 support.

Discover Zend PHP LTS Explore ZendPHP
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Developing and Deploying PHP Applications

Deploying and developing web applications with PHP requires strategic decision-making. From selecting the right hosting environment to adopting modern practices, each step will ensure your application is prepared for growth and resilience while meeting your organization’s business goals.

Read on for details, and check out these resources for in-depth insights on developing and deploying PHP applications.

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Choosing the Right Deployment Option

Choosing the right deployment environment and strategy will impact your application’s long-term performance, scalability, and maintainability. Your best deployment option will depend on your goals, skill set, and resources.

Shared Hosting is the most basic option, with multiple applications sharing the same resources. It is cost effective and easy to set up, making it suitable for small projects or personal websites. However, it offers limited control over server configuration and can lead to performance and scalability issues under heavy traffic.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) provide dedicated resources within a shared physical server, which gives you more control, particularly compared to shared hosting. It is ideal for medium-sized PHP applications that need custom setups without the cost of a full dedicated server.

Dedicated Servers offer complete control over hardware and software, which makes them a popular choice for enterprise applications. But, in exchange for improved performance and security, dedicated servers come with higher costs and maintenance responsibilities.

Cloud Hosting platforms like AWS for PHP or Google Cloud allow PHP apps to scale dynamically based on demand. They support a variety of deployment paradigms, from virtual machines to dedicated machines to containers, as well as orchestration tooling (more on those below) to allow building deployment automation. However, cloud hosting can introduce higher operational costs, require complex configuration management, and call for specialized expertise.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) simplifies deployment by managing infrastructure, scaling, and updates automatically. This means your team can focus on building applications rather than handling server configurations. Despite these advantages, PaaS also comes with reduced flexibility for custom configurations, potential vendor lock-in, and higher costs.

Using Containers and Orchestration Tools for Developing Web Applications in PHP

Containerization packages an application and its dependencies into lightweight, isolated units to create consistent environments across development, testing, and production. This eliminates common issues like configuration mismatches and “it works on my machine” issues for more secure deployments.

Containers also make scaling easier. When combined with orchestration tools, containers allow you to automate deployment, manage load balancing, and maintain fault tolerance. This approach is particularly beneficial for PHP microservices architecture, where each service runs in its own container and allows for independent updates.

Beyond deployment, containers streamline the development workflow. They easily integrate with CI/CD pipelines, allowing you to test and release new features quickly without worrying about environment inconsistencies. This means faster delivery, improved reliability, and greater flexibility in adopting modern cloud-native practices.

Despite the many benefits offered by deploying containers, there are a few challenges to keep in mind. Containerization can introduce complexity in setup, orchestration, and monitoring, especially when scaling across multiple services. Misconfigured containers or outdated images can expose critical applications to vulnerabilities. They also come with a steep learning curve, and if your team is unfamiliar with containerization technologies, adoption can be slowed as training costs rise.

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Implement Security-First Practices

A security-first approach to PHP web app development starts with embedding security into every step of your strategy. This includes writing code that anticipates threats and minimizes vulnerabilities from the outset. Here are a few PHP security best practices to help you get started:

  • Validate and sanitize filter input and escape output
  • Use prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
  • Avoid deprecated functions and insecure configurations
  • Ensure sensitive data, such as passwords, is encrypted using strong hashing algorithms

Beyond coding practices, hardening PHP applications is a must for developing web applications with PHP. Hardening your apps can include a variety of steps, including:

  • Enforcing strict error handling
  • Setting proper file permissions
  • Incorporating HTTPS for secure data transmission
  • Implementing strong session management to protect user credentials
  • Conducting regular dependency checks and timely updates to PHP and third-party libraries

Reduce risk, maintain compliance with standards like PCI DSS or GDPR, and deliver secure applications – all by incorporating a security-first strategy at all steps of development.

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Observability Tooling and PHP App Development

Observability tooling goes beyond simple monitoring. It provides deep visibility into PHP application behavior to help your team detect issues, optimize performance, and maintain security through the development lifecycle.

Modern observability solutions – including ZendHQ and the Zend Enterprise Web Platform – support real-time monitoring, logging, and alerting. These functionalities are crucial for identifying bottlenecks and preventing downtime. 

Observability not only improves application stability but also accelerates troubleshooting, making it a key component of any PHP development strategy. By integrating these tools early in the development process, you can proactively address performance issues, validate code changes, and maintain compliance.

Additional Resources

Planning for Future Scalability

As demand grows, PHP applications without a scalability strategy will face bottlenecks, downtime, and costly redesigns. Planning ahead means designing your PHP architecture to handle increased traffic, larger datasets, and evolving business requirements.

To prepare for future PHP scalability:

  • Build modular code with clear separation of concerns to more easily scale individual components
  • Implement caching strategies to reduce server load and improve response times
  • Optimize database queries for efficiency and consider indexing for faster lookups
  • Plan for horizontal scaling using load balancers and multiple servers, or vertical scaling by upgrading hardware resources
  • Leverage containerization and orchestration tools to automate scaling and resource allocation

By incorporating scalability planning in development, you can keep your critical PHP applications responsive and reliable while controlling the rise of PHP maintenance costs.

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Future-Proofing Your PHP Applications

Developing web applications with PHP is no small feat. Add in deploying and maintaining those applications, and many teams struggle to keep pace. From managing complex architectures and dependencies to ensuring security and compliance, the challenges only grow as your application continues to evolve. Even if your team can handle day-to-day development tasks, long-term management of mission-critical systems often demand more than single companies can provide.

That’s where third-party support, such as solutions offered by Zend, can be an effective solution.

For instance, we offer the Enterprise Web Platform, which delivers a custom-configured command center for enterprise PHP applications. Built with a security-first architecture and on CIS-benchmarked images, the Enterprise Web Platform comes with built-in tools for performance monitoring, code tracing, and other capabilities required for modern PHP environments. It provides the simplicity of Paas, but with no lock-in or operational overhead.

We also offer a full suite of Professional Services. Your team benefits from hands-on assistance and expert support for migrations, upgrades, and modernization projects, ensuring smooth transitions and minimal downtime. No matter your project or infrastructure, Zend provides the resources and experience required to future-proof your PHP ecosystem.

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Mission-Critical PHP Made Possible

Zend tackles the toughest problems in PHP. Contact us on your next PHP app development, modernization, or maintenance project.

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