1995 founded Standing
languages · php.net
PHP
the moat is real
31 years 73 days and counting
Personal Home Page tools, 1995. The modern web's unfashionable load-bearing wall.
Why it lasted
- WordPress, Wikipedia, Facebook's first decade, and a billion shared hosts.
- Cheap hosting plus a language that deploys as files is a distribution machine.
- The rewrite (PHP 7/8) made it fast after the industry had already written the obituary.
Times it almost ended
- Every HN thread since 2008. The language kept running the sites those threads load.
- Hack/HHVM was supposed to be the grown-up fork. PHP 7 closed the gap and Facebook moved on.
What would finish it
- WordPress moving off PHP. That is the actual kill switch, and it has not flipped.
Questions
Is PHP still up?
Yes, with a Standing verdict: the moat is real. Founded 1995.
How long has PHP been around?
PHP has been up since 1995-06-08.
Why did PHP survive?
WordPress, Wikipedia, Facebook's first decade, and a billion shared hosts.
Could PHP still die?
WordPress moving off PHP. That is the actual kill switch, and it has not flipped.