PHP

PHP (originally named "Personal Home Page" and now defined as the recursive acronym "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") is a widely used server-side scripting language for building dynamic web applications.

It features dynamic typing, flexible string interpolation, garbage collection, a large standard library, built-in handling of sessions, cookies, forms, and file uploads, native integration with numerous databases, and, since PHP 8, additional improvements such as just-in-time compilation, union types, attributes, and enums.

PHP powers many open-source projects such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, along with well-known platforms including Wikipedia, Etsy, Tumblr, Flickr, and Mailchimp. Facebook was originally built with PHP as well, and later transitioned to Hack, an optimized PHP dialect.

According to our data, PHP is the second most popular programming language on the web.
It has 68.1% of the programming language market share and is detected on 56.5% of all websites.

Statistics based on 3.5M+ analyzed websites. About this data

📊 Rankings and Market Share

🏆 PHP Awards

⚡ Sites Built With PHP

We have data on 1,995,507 websites that use the PHP programming language. Here is a list of some of the top ranked ones.

The highest rated site using PHP is wikipedia.org.

#WebsiteRankCountryLanguage
1 wikipedia.org #11 United States English
2 bitly.com #17 American English
3 p**nhub.com #26 United States English
4 vk.com #39 Russia English
5 instructure.com #52 United States English
6 proxysite.com #71 American English
7 tumblr.com #78 United States American English
8 wordpress.com #83 United States English
9 etsy.com #93 United States American English
10 erome.com #109 United States English
11 ep**ner.com #118 Netherlands English
12 epfindia.gov.in #126 India Hindi
13 nypost.com #140 United States American English
14 espn.com #141 English
15 en.wikipedia.org United States English
16 irs.gov #183 United States English
17 w3schools.com #188 American English
18 go.com #199 English
19 inven.co.kr #218 Korea Korean
20 dcinside.com #221 Korea Korean

📈 Usage Statistics

Most of the sites that use PHP:

Most of the sites using PHP are from the United States, Germany, and Japan.

  • United States 18%
  • Germany 7.9%
  • Japan 5.6%
  • United Kingdom 5.5%
  • France 4.6%
  • Spain 3.7%
  • Italy 3.6%
  • Russia 3.5%
  • Netherlands 3.3%
  • Other 44.3%

Most PHP users speak English, German, or Spanish.

  • English 47.4%
  • German 7.2%
  • Spanish 5.5%
  • Japanese 5%
  • French 4.4%
  • Russian 3.9%
  • Italian 2.9%
  • Portuguese 2.6%
  • Dutch 2.5%
  • Other 18.6%

The PHP programming language is especially popular on .com and .org top-level domains.

  • .com 41.5%
  • .org 6.4%
  • .de 4.8%
  • .net 3.1%
  • .ru 2.5%
  • .it 2.1%
  • .co.uk 2%
  • .nl 2%
  • .fr 1.7%
  • Other 33.9%

The primary market segments for websites utilizing PHP include business, blogs and wiki, and online shopping.

  • Business 17.4%
  • Blogs/Wiki 7.6%
  • Online Shopping 7.3%
  • Education/Reference 6.7%
  • Internet Services 5.2%
  • Entertainment 4.3%
  • Health 3.5%
  • Non-Profit/Advocacy/NGO 2.8%
  • General News 2.6%
  • Other 42.6%

🔢 PHP Versions

The most widespread version of PHP is 7.4, used by 31.7% of sites where versions were detected. In addition, 12.5% of sites use PHP 8.1, and 12% use PHP 8.2.

  • 7.4 31.7%
  • 8.1 12.5%
  • 8.2 12%
  • 8.3 7.7%
  • 5.6 6.8%
  • 8.0 6.4%
  • 7.3 4.8%
  • 7.2 3.9%
  • 5.4 2.9%
  • Other 11.3%

🕵️ Similar Technologies

These are some of the best PHP alternatives.

RankName
1
JavaScript
Austin, Texas, United States

An interpreted programming language and a core technology of the web, alongside HTML and CSS, used to add interactivity and logic to websites and web applications.
5
Java
Austin, Texas, United States

A multi-platform, object-oriented programming language first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995, designed to run across different systems through the Java Virtual Machine.
6
Python
Wilmington, Delaware, United States

A high-level, general-purpose programming language that is dynamically typed and widely used for scripting, automation, data analysis, and machine learning.
8
Go
Mountain View, California, United States

A high-level, statically typed, compiled programming language developed at Google for building efficient, scalable software and backend services.
21
Hack
Menlo Park, California, United States

A PHP-based programming language designed for the HHVM virtual machine and developed by Meta to build large-scale web applications with improved type safety.

🆚 Compare Alternatives

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💬 Frequently Asked Questions

Which country uses PHP the most?

The majority of PHP users are from the United States.

Who uses PHP?

According to our data, PHP is used on millions of sites, including such established ones as wikipedia.org, bitly.com, and vk.com.

Is PHP used on government websites?

Yes, for example, it is used by epfindia.gov.in and irs.gov. In total, we found PHP on 1,352 government sites in the United States.

Do academic institutions use PHP?

Yes, quite a few! Overall, we know of 3,284 academic websites in the United States that use PHP.

How does PHP stack up against its competitors?

PHP is one of the most popular programming languages, second only to JavaScript.

What are the alternatives to PHP?

Alternatives and possible competitors to PHP may include Python, Java, and Go.

👉 See Also

🗃️ About This Data