The PHP Revolution Is Underway: FrankenPHP 1.0 Beta

I'm very proud to announce the immediate availability of FrankenPHP 1.0 beta.

FrankenPHP is a brand-new application server for PHP, written in Go and built on top of Caddy, that dramatically simplifies the deployment of PHP apps, and brings new features to PHP such as:

- a worker mode that improves typical application performance by a factor of 3
- native support for HTTP/3
- native support for the 103 Early Hints HTTP status code (assets preloading)
- automatic HTTPS certificate generation and renewal
- native support for the Mercure protocol (real-time data broadcasting)
- and much more!

FrankenPHP is available as a Docker image (Debian, Alpine, PHP 8.2, and PHP 8.3 variants are available) and as standalone binaries with 0 dependencies for Linux and macOS.

Transcript

1. API PLATFORM CON 2023 - LILLE, FRANCE & ONLINE
   

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2. The New PHP Era
   01
   02
   03
   04
   The State of PHP
   API Platform 3.2
   What’s Next
   

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3. About Me
   ✔ API Platform creator
   ✔ Les-Tilleuls.coop co-founder
   ✔ Polyglot developer
   Kévin Dunglas
   dunglas@mastodon.social
   @dunglas
   dunglas.dev
   

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4. The State
   of PHP
   A bit dated
   

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5. PHP FPM
   Web Browser Web Server
   (NGINX, Caddy, …)
   HTTP
   REQUEST
   HTTP
   RESPONSE
   PHP-FPM
   PHP processes
   FASTCGI
   REQUEST
   FASTCGI
   RESPONSE
   

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6. Deploying PHP Apps
   ✖ PHP doesn’t speak HTTP directly
   ✖ PHP must be bridged with a web server
   ✖ PHP-FPM is the most popular Server API
   (SAPI)
   - External server using the FastCGI protocol
   ✖ Alternative: mod_php for Apache:
   - Not compatible or not recommended with
   modern Apache
   

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7. Deploying PHP Apps: Summary
   ✖ Unlike alternatives (e.g. Node), PHP has no
   built-in HTTP server
   ✖ PHP-FPM needs a 3rd-party web server
   ✖ This implies:
   ○ At least 2 services
   ○ A shared file (UNIX socket, best
   option) or a network link between the
   FPM and the web server
   

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8. PHP Apps: Onboarding
   Local installation is complex, all users need:
   ✖ PHP-FPM
   ✖ A web server
   ✖ Same versions on every machine, and in
   prod
   ✖ Same configuration on every machine,
   and in prod
   ✖ Fortunately, Docker helps: API Platform
   distribution, Symfony Docker, Laravel
   Sail…
   NEW DEVS
   NOT WELCOME
   

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9. PHP Apps: Docker / Kubernetes
   © sergioska
   

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10. PHP Performance
    ✔ The language itself is now very fast (faster
    than Python or Ruby)
    ✖ But PHP is “fire and forget”
    ✖ Everything that is built to handle a request is
    then destroyed when the request is handled:
    - Symfony kernel
    - Symfony DIC
    - Services
    - In memory caches…
    

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11. PHP Real-time
    ✖ PHP isn’t designed to support
    long-running connections
    (max_execution_time, no direct access to
    the network layer…)
    ✖ WebSocket, SSE, WebTransport and the
    like are not (or badly) supported by
    typical PHP setups
    ✖ It’s the same for other advanced/modern
    HTTP features (e.g. 103 Early Hints)
    

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12. The New
    PHP Era
    The Modern Prometheus
    

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13. Introducing FrankenPHP 1.0 beta
    

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14. The Modern PHP App Server
    ✔ All in one HTTP server with native, vanilla, PHP
    support
    ✔ Cloud Native
    ✔ Built with Docker in mind…
    ✔ …but also available as a standalone static binary
    ✔ Worker mode
    ✔ Native Mercure support
    ✔ Early Hints and much more!
    

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15. Web Browser
    PHP Threads
    Only One Service
    HTTP
    REQUEST
    HTTP
    RESPONSE
    

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16. Moderner PHP Than Ever
    ✔ The official PHP executor is embedded in
    a state-of-the-art web server: Caddy
    ✔ Native support for HTTP 1, 2 and 3
    ✔ Automatic HTTPS certificates generation
    and renewal (Let’s Encrypt or ZeroSSL)
    ✔ Copy your PHP files in the document root,
    that’s all!
    ✔ Popular PHP extensions, including
    OPcache and XDebug, are natively
    supported!
    

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17. Docker Images
    $ docker run .:/app/public dunglas/frankenphp
    ✔ Exposes the current directory (as php -S)
    ✔ Built on top of official PHP Images
    ✔ PHP 8.2 and 8.3 variants
    ✔ Install PHP extensions as usual
    ✔ An Alpine variant exists
    (default: Debian)
    

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18. One Binary To Rule Them All
    

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19. One Binary To Rule Them All
    $ ./frankenphp run --config /my/Caddyfile
    ✔ Exposes the current directory (as php -S)
    ✔ Static binary (no dependencies)
    ✔ Caddy, FrankenPHP, PHP and all popular PHP
    extensions are embedded
    ✔ Available for macOS and Linux
    

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20. Worker Mode
    ✔ Boot your application once and keep it in memory!
    ✔ Process incoming requests without having to boot your app again
    ✔ Compatible with API Platform and Symfony thanks
    to Symfony Runtime
    ✔ Written in C and Go (awesome concurrency engine)
    ✔ According to our benchmarks, 3.5x faster than FPM
    with API Platform
    ✔ Unlike alternatives (RoadRunner, Swoole…)
    ○ entirely optional: typical apps still work
    with FrankenPHP
    ○ runs in process: no network calls
    ○ uses plain old superglobals: no need for PSR-7 etc
    

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21. Worker Mode
    

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22. Real-time: Built-in Mercure Hub
    

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23. 103 Early Hints
    

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24. Already Popular
    

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25. ❤ Free Software
    

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26. FrankenPHP and
    API Platform
    Best Friends Forever
    

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27. API Platform 3.2 Beta Is Out!
    $ gh repo create my-project \
    --clone --private \
    --template api-platform/api-platform
    $ cd my-project
    $ docker compose up --wait
    

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28. 3.2 Includes FrankenPHP
    ✔ Key feature: FrankenPHP is now part of the API
    Platform distribution
    ✔ Prod mode (Kubernetes, Docker Compose…) uses
    FrankenPHP workers
    ✔ The distribution has been dramatically simplified:
    only 1 core service for PHP
    ✔ You don’t have to change a single line of code!
    ✔ An FPM variant is still provided (for now)
    

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29. Other Docker Improvements
    ✔ 6x times faster builds
    ✔ Cached layers reused across builds when using
    GitHub Actions
    ✔ Simplified and improved Dockerfiles
    ✔ Symfony Docker also benefits from FrankenPHP and
    these improvements
    

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30. Before:
    

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31. Now: 7x Faster
    

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32. Native OAuth and OIDC support
    

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33. Groundbreaking WASM-based
    runnable documentation
    

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34. Improved DTO system
    

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35. Better Extensibility And
    Dozens of Other Improvements
    

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36. What’s
    Next
    Still Some Work To Do
    

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37. Known Issues With FrankenPHP
    ✖ Fibers aren’t reliable (work in progress, in the Go
    runtime)
    ✖ Crashes when building the Symfony cache with the
    Alpine Variant (use Debian for now)
    ✖ Doctrine isn’t 100% reliable in worker mode (work in
    progress)
    

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38. Going One Step Further
    

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39. FOLLOW ME!
    @dunglas
    dunglas.dev / frankenphp.dev / api-platform.com
    Thank you!
    Any questions?
    

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