PHP

PHP (a recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a server-side scripting language created primarily for building dynamic websites and web applications. It emerged in the mid-1990s and remains one of the web's most popular languages, powering the majority of live websites.

How PHP works

Unlike JavaScript, which runs in the browser, PHP code executes on the server. When a user requests a page, the web server hands the script to the PHP interpreter, which generates a finished HTML document — often pulling data from a database such as MySQL — and sends the result back to the browser. The browser never sees the PHP code itself, only the output it produces.

On modern servers, PHP most often runs in PHP-FPM mode, which manages a pool of processes that handle requests efficiently and in parallel. Successive versions of the language — from the PHP 5 branch through PHP 7 to the current PHP 8 releases — brought major performance gains, stronger typing and new syntax features.

Practical application

PHP is the foundation of the most popular content management systems and e-commerce platforms: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, PrestaShop and Magento are all written in it. For larger applications, developers reach for frameworks like Laravel or Symfony, which structure the code and speed up development.

PHP's popularity means practically every shared hosting plan ships it ready to use, usually with a version selector in the control panel. For performance and security, running a current, supported version of the language is essential — older releases no longer receive fixes and become an entry point for attacks.