Ever noticed how some tech buzzwords just vanish? For years, PHP was everywhere. If you wanted to build a website fast and cheap, PHP was your guy. But now, ask a junior dev if they're learning PHP and you're likely to get a blank stare or an awkward laugh.
The numbers back it up. According to Stack Overflow's 2024 survey, only about 18% of professional developers said they still use PHP, compared to 26% just five years ago. Companies, especially startups and big tech names, are building fewer new projects on PHP every year.
Does this mean you should dump PHP and panic-stop every PHP project you're running? Not necessarily. But it pays to know what's actually happening, what the risks are, and whether PHP skills are still worth betting on. You don't want to get left behind because you're waiting for a tech comeback that isn't coming.
Back in the late '90s and early 2000s, almost every website you visited had a piece of PHP running in the background. Why? Because PHP made web stuff insanely easy to whip up, even for beginners. You could just throw some PHP code into an HTML file and boom, your first dynamic web page was live.
The timing was perfect. The internet was exploding, everyone wanted a website, and other languages like Java and C++ were way too complicated for quick jobs. PHP development filled a huge gap by making interactive web pages possible without massive budgets or teams.
WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal—the engines that still run a huge chunk of the internet—were all built with PHP. In fact, as of 2024, WordPress still powers over 42% of all websites. Even Facebook started as a scrappy PHP project in Zuckerberg’s dorm. If you wanted to make something fast and didn’t care about using the "coolest" tech, PHP was usually the answer.
Check out these numbers to get a sense of PHP’s wild reach:
| Year | Market Share (Websites using PHP) |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 80% |
| 2019 | 78% |
| 2024 | 76% |
Even as newer languages appeared, PHP held on because it was just so familiar—if you landed a cheap hosting plan, odds were it came with PHP ready to roll. That practicality is what made PHP a true web giant for so long.
If you talk to any modern web developer, you’ll hear names like Python, JavaScript (Node.js), and Go tossed around way more than PHP. The game has changed big time since the days when WordPress and Facebook were showing off what PHP could do. Now there’s a new crowd bringing more fun, flexibility, and some real performance boosts.
One major shake-up came from JavaScript evolving into something much bigger thanks to Node.js. Suddenly, devs could write the same language on both the frontend and backend, streamlining their whole workflow. That’s a massive win in terms of hiring and code sharing. It’s why businesses obsessed with fast launches are all about Node nowadays.
Python also took a big bite out of PHP's pie. Frameworks like Django and Flask made building secure, maintainable web apps easier. Plus, everyone wants a bit of that sweet, sweet machine learning power Python is famous for. Even non-web devs are jumping in, so companies end up with teams that already have Python skills. It just makes sense for them to use it everywhere they can.
Don't forget Go (Golang), either. It’s not as trendy on the surface, but companies dealing with high-traffic APIs are loving its raw speed. If you’re building the next Uber or handling millions of requests per minute, Go’s performance matters way more than PHP’s ease of use.
Here’s a quick point-by-point of what these new rivals bring to the table compared to classic PHP:
If you look at the 2024 GitHub Octoverse report, projects built with Node.js and Python outnumber new PHP projects almost 4 to 1. That tells you where the energy is right now and why people keep saying things like "PHP is dying."
It’s not just about one or two flashy new languages bumping PHP out of the spotlight. The shift comes from real, practical frustrations. New developers want tools that feel modern—think async support, easy testing, good documentation, and fat, growing libraries. Classic PHP hasn’t always hit those marks.
Think about job postings. Hop on any tech job board and count the number of listings looking for Node.js, Python, or even Go. Now check out the ones for PHP. You’ll notice the difference immediately. A 2024 report from Indeed found PHP job postings shrank by 32% over two years, way sharper than most other common web languages.
"We rarely see new projects start with PHP anymore. Most clients want something with wider community support and better cloud compatibility." — Ryan Ward, Senior Tech Recruiter, CodeRun
Here are the main reasons everyone’s moving on:
One quick look at GitHub trends adds another clue. In 2024, PHP dropped out of the top six most-used languages for open-source projects, replaced by TypeScript and Rust. That means fewer code resources, less community energy, and slower updates to the hottest tools.
| Year | PHP Job Postings (%) | Node.js Job Postings (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 12 | 16 |
| 2022 | 9 | 22 |
| 2024 | 6 | 30 |
Even big, old-school companies are modernizing. Take Facebook, which technically runs on “HHVM”—an offshoot of PHP that’s so heavily tweaked, regular PHP code can’t even run there anymore. Everyone’s chasing faster speeds and hotter toolsets, and PHP’s old tricks just aren’t enough today.
This is the question that stumps a lot of developers: is it still worth learning or working with PHP in 2025? Here’s the honest answer: it depends on what you want your coding journey to look like and where you want to work.
If you’re aiming for jobs with companies running legacy systems, PHP is still in play. Big names—like Facebook (yes, a lot of its backend still uses a heavily tweaked PHP version called Hack), WordPress.com, and Wikipedia—aren’t rewriting their websites from scratch anytime soon. In fact, over 40% of all websites still use WordPress, which is built on PHP.
But here’s the catch: most growth in modern web apps is focused on newer tools like Node.js, Python (looking at you, Django, Flask), or even Rust and Go. If you want to jump into hot startups or play with the coolest frameworks, you’re way more likely to find jobs requiring those skills instead of PHP. The job boards back this up:
| Language | Job Postings (2025) |
|---|---|
| PHP | 4,300 |
| Node.js | 13,200 |
| Python | 17,000 |
| Go | 5,500 |
If you’re dipping your toes into freelance work, it’s still not a terrible idea to keep PHP in your toolbox. Tons of small businesses run on WordPress, and they’ll always need someone to fix bugs or add features. But if you’re looking for roles focused on innovation—think AI, microservices, or blazing-fast APIs—then it’s probably smart to broaden your skill set.
Bottom line: learning PHP is not a total waste, but betting your career only on it? That’s a risk. Mix in a fresh skill or two and you’ll make yourself way more marketable—no matter what the trends look like next year.
