Introducing PHP News

It's been a while since I created a new web site! I'm excited to share I've partnered with my friend Eric Barnes to launch PHP News, a new site covering the whole PHP ecosystem.

Check out PHP News →

Why we're doing this

If you listen to the Laravel Podcast and mainly know me as a Laravel person, you might be surprised to see this! I've spent a lot of time lately talking about how Laravel is a multilingual framework, and Taylor has just started talking about a version of Laravel for Rust. Why invest so much time in PHP? Also, I've never run a news site, so why start now, in the midst of AI craziness?

The honest reason for "why this, now" is that I care a lot about seeing the PHP ecosystem move forward. That's why I joined the board of the PHP Foundation. I think much of the public negative perception of the language (and, therefore, projects associated with it) stems from the fact that its public representation through its website, docs, and other materials have looked largely the same for decades.

How to help the PHP ecosystem

One of the first steps we need to take to improve PHP's reputation is to create excellent online resources for education and for showing the rest of the world what PHP actually is today. I think PHP is a powerful and capable language for modern development, especially in the age of AI, and PHP's online presence doesn't reflect that at all.

When I started thinking about how we could do this, the first thing that came to mind was the excellence of Eric Barnes' Laravel News and the significance of its longterm impact on building the Laravel community. And Eric has even covered quite a bit of PHP content over the years, so I know he gets PHP specifically.

Well, Eric and I spoke about it, and it turns out Eric had already been thinking about the same thing! So it was an easy choice to decide to partner together on this.

What you'll find

Here's what we're publishing on PHP News:

• News: PHP core, packages, developer tools, applications, and community, published daily
• RFC Watch: every open RFC with a plain-English summary and its current status
• Releases: new PHP versions and security fixes when they ship
• PHP Version Checker: supported versions and EOL dates in one place
• Events: a calendar of upcoming PHP conferences and meetups

The weekly newsletter

PHP News has its own free weekly email with the most important news, tutorials, and packages from across the ecosystem. If keeping up with everything feels like a lot, this is the easiest way to stay in the loop.

Subscribe to the PHP News newsletter →

Thank you to our launch partners

A big thank you to Tideways and PhpStorm for supporting PHP News as launch partners. Their support helps us get this new publication off the ground, and we're grateful to have them with us from the start.

Check it out today

So go! Check out PHP News today. And if there's something else you think it'd be good to have in this one central location, let us know!