On June 8, 2025, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) celebrates 30 years of existence, solidifying itself as one of the most influential and long-lasting programming languages in history.
PHP gave me my first web development client back in 2010 — a real estate agency in the city of Maricá, RJ. At the time, as was common, I developed the project with the help of a book that guided you through building a complete project. The book was called “Faça um Site Orientado por Projeto PHP 5.2 com MySQL 5.0” by Carlos A. J. Oliviero. Great memories!
Created in 1995 by Rasmus Lerdorf, PHP started as a set of C scripts to meet his personal programming needs. What began as a personal tool quickly evolved into an open-source language used by millions of developers around the world.
Over the past 30 years, PHP has undergone countless improvements — including modern advancements like PHP 8.x, which brought static typing support, JIT compilation, and more advanced object-oriented features. The language has kept up with — and often anticipated — the demands of the modern web.
Platforms like WordPress (including WooCommerce), Drupal, Joomla, and Magento are still powered by PHP today. PHP also benefits from modern and robust frameworks like Laravel and Symfony — all of which contribute to the fact that no less than three-quarters of websites on the internet currently use PHP as a server-side language, according to W3Techs.
Without a doubt, PHP’s longevity is thanks to its loyal and active community, its complete and well-organized documentation, and its ease of learning — making it the starting point for thousands of beginner developers.
With 30 years of history, PHP continues to evolve, proving that staying ahead while keeping a solid foundation is the key to lasting leadership.
Congratulations to PHP and to everyone who contributed to its journey so far!
<?php
// Define emojis using unicode
$coracao = "\u{2764}\u{FE0F}";
$cone = "\u{1F389}";
echo "Congratulations on 30 years made possible by everyone who " . $coracao . " and uses PHP! " . $cone\n;
Result:
Congratulations on 30 years made possible by everyone who ❤️ and uses PHP! 🎉
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