Is PHP Dead? The 2026 Picture, by the Numbers
PHP's 2026 snapshot through W3Techs, Stack Overflow, JetBrains and Packagist data: five of six signals strong, one a warning; weaknesses included.
PHP · Data
Is PHP Dead? The 2026 Picture, by the Numbers
Usage share, survey rankings, ecosystem, release calendar and job market: PHP's 2026 snapshot from four sources.
The short answer
A mature, dominant language that is open to criticism.
Five strong signals, one warning. This is not the picture of a “dead language.”
71.2%
W3Techs · May 2026
of websites with a known server-side language run PHP
The share has sat in a narrow band for years: it slipped from around 75% to around 71%, but it is still more than ten times that of the second most common server-side language.
W3Techs · May 2026
The gap to its rivals
website share, %
- PHP71.2
- Ruby6.7
- JavaScript6.2
- Java5.4
- ASP.NET4.4
W3Techs · PHP version distribution
Version share of PHP sites (%)
- PHP 8.x59.9
- PHP 7.x7.4 reached end of support in November 202231.6
- PHP 5.x8.4
- PHP 4.x0.1
Surveys and ecosystem
In use, and growing
- 18.9%Stack Overflow 2025, all respondents12th place; 13th among professionals at 19.1%
- 89%of developers on PHP 8.xJetBrains State of PHP 2025, 1,720 people
- 453,911packages on Packagist5,578,059 versions
- 181 billionComposer downloads since 2012181,729,296,774
Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025
Ahead of the “trendy languages”
usage, %
- PHP18.9
- Go16.4
- Rust14.8
Language development · as of May 2026
One release a year
| Version | Release | End of support |
|---|---|---|
| PHP 8.0 | November 2020 | November 2023 · ended |
| PHP 8.1 | November 2021 | December 2025 · ended |
| PHP 8.2 | December 2022 | December 2026 · active |
| PHP 8.3 | November 2023 | December 2027 · active |
| PHP 8.4 | November 2024 | December 2028 · active |
| PHP 8.5 | November 2025 | December 2029 · active |
Summary table
Six signals
- Usage share: leading, 71.2% of websites (done)
- Developer popularity: 18.9%, ahead of Go and Rust (done)
- Ecosystem: 453 thousand packages, 181 billion downloads (done)
- Language development: a new release every year (done)
- Job market: strong, especially around Laravel and WordPress (done)
- Newcomers: slow but flowing, from 2% to 4% (pending)
What a dead language looks like
ColdFusion and TIOBE's Perl
| ColdFusion and TIOBE | PHP | |
|---|---|---|
| Support | ColdFusion 2021 exited core support in November 2025 | A new release every year |
| New frameworks | None are coming out for ColdFusion | Laravel, Symfony, Pest, Livewire |
| TIOBE rank | ColdFusion is not in the top 50 | 14th in May 2026 |
| Metric | TIOBE blends searches, books and courses: Perl jumped from 27th to 10th in a year with 4 times as many books on Amazon as PHP | Usage: W3Techs share and Packagist downloads |
Ecosystem
Package pool and job market
- Packagist453,911 packages; CPAN has ~220,000 modules, RubyGems ~180,000 gems.
- WordPress42.2% of the web; even maintaining it demands a large workforce.
- Laravel and SymfonyThe freelance and agency market around them is growing.
- Way of working12% of PHP developers are independent, 56% work in small teams (JetBrains).
Open to criticism
Real problems
Where it is strong
- CRUD-heavy web applications
- Content management
- E-commerce
Where it is weak
- Async is secondary: ReactPHP, Swoole and FrankenPHP are layers added on top of the language
- No generics; they are simulated through docblocks with PHPStan
- 31.6% of PHP sites are on 7.x; 7.4 reached end of support in November 2022
- Real-time messaging, high-frequency trading, ML: not the natural choice
Conclusion
Not dead: mature, dominant, open to criticism.
Sources: W3Techs, Stack Overflow 2025, JetBrains State of PHP 2025, Packagist.
