The State of PHP in 2025 — My Take

JetBrains just released their State of PHP 2025 report, and it’s a great reality check on where PHP actually stands today — not where people think it is.

Here’s what caught my eye:

PHP’s still got momentum. 58% of developers plan to keep using it next year. That’s not a dying language — that’s a community that’s still building.

Modern PHP is the norm now. Nearly 9 out of 10 devs are running on PHP 8.x. The ecosystem’s clearly moving fast and not getting stuck in legacy land.

AI has gone from hype to habit. 95% of PHP developers have tried AI tools, and 80% use them regularly. That’s a complete shift in how we code and ship features.

Frameworks are holding their ground. Laravel continues to lead with 64%, while Symfony stays solid at 23%. Strong, mature ecosystems both.

Still room to grow. Almost half of devs skip automated code quality checks — which means there’s huge space for better tooling and practices.

Bottom line:

PHP isn’t just surviving; it’s levelling up. Between faster adoption of modern versions, AI integration, and strong frameworks, the PHP world feels more future-proof than it has in years.

👉 Check out the full JetBrains report here: The State of PHP 2025