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Logan Lindquist
Logan Lindquist

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Why is PHP's popularity decreasing?

Five reasons from my perspective

Here is my attempt at answering this question that was posted on Quora. If you want a much more in-depth answer; the full details are available via post on Medium. Here I will answer the question using Memes because let's be honest that is the content we are really after.

  1. A choice in languages
  2. The prevalence of Software Platforms as a Service
  3. The increase in importance of First Contentful Paint in SEO
  4. Maintenance is expensive
  5. An abundance of entry level developers

A Choice in Languages

a choice

in languages

The Prevalence of Software Platforms as a Service

no software was the answer

so much sass

The Increase in Importance of First Contentful Paint inΒ SEO

seo

who knows seo

Maintenance is Expensive

it takes a team

business calls the shots

An Abundance of Entry Level Developers

entry devs unit tests

sigh

Top comments (19)

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jesusantguerrero profile image
Jesus Guerrero

I think "PHP popularity decreasing" is a perception thing. It sure makes less noise than javascript, JAM Stack, javascript frameworks but in usage, language evolution PHP might be in his best days right now.

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spo0q profile image
spO0q πŸ’

PHP's popularity is decreasing

I don't have the same impression. Do you have data to confirm such trend?

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andersbjorkland profile image
Anders BjΓΆrkland

Yeah, GitHub might be a better indicator, but Google Trends have it declining. Though it had an uptick about a year ago. (Could it have to do anything with the release of PHP 8?)

Anyway, I did a Google Trends analysis just the other day to see if "popularity" of PHP was correlated with WordPress.

dev.to/andersbjorkland/is-PHP-sear...

The short of it is that WordPress and PHP has followed the same trend over a long period, and during this period (2016-2020) it has been declining. 2021 has overall seen an upwards trend for PHP but it might just as well turn down over the next year.

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marciofao profile image
marciofao

The GitHub annual report indeed seems to present it. But Google searches from it seems stable.

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llbbl profile image
Logan Lindquist • Edited

Hey friend, yes its on Medium... it was not just trolling. -> the person who asked = wasn't me

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andersbjorkland profile image
Anders BjΓΆrkland

I liked the article you had through Medium. Something I've come to reflect on is just what you wrote about how easy it is to learn, that we don't need any computer science background to get off the ground. It is with that, that PHP makes it easy to do something wrong, with regards to security and maintainability. I'm grateful that I got hooked on a framework that forced me to meet a minimal level of standards (Symfony).

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llbbl profile image
Logan Lindquist

Thanks Anders! Glad you liked it. Symfony is great and built so many great packages. Top10 composer is like ok settle down Symfony we get it your awesome.

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rmikalkenas profile image
Rokas

I wouldn't even bother to write and post such peace of garbage. What's the reason of such articles? No statistics, no arguments...

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andersbjorkland profile image
Anders BjΓΆrkland

Reflect on how you communicate. You could as easily have put your criticism in a constructive format, such as:

"I found this article lacking in statistics or arguments. It could be improved by including this."

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llbbl profile image
Logan Lindquist

Medium = Full answer
Quora = Medium answer
Devto = Meme answer
πŸ˜€πŸ’©

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crrojas88 profile image
Rodrigo Rojas

This is the way

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llbbl profile image
Logan Lindquist • Edited

The memes are all screwed up on here (for me). So sorry if you see them also. It was not that bad when I first posted.

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w3rafu profile image
Rafael Fu

Ladies and gentelman, the decadence of DEV.to

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fevangelou profile image
Fotis Evangelou

Correct, from your perspective. A hunch.

As for Google trends which someone mentioned, it's normal for people not to Google something which is ubiquitous.

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llbbl profile image
Logan Lindquist

Hey Fotis, the full answer is on Medium, but yes there was a decline in the past year and overall trending down past few years. Ty for taking time to respond.

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sajibsrs profile image
Sajidur Rahman

You should have posted this to 9gag. Your memes prove nothing. Provide information about point you're trying to prove not memes.

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llbbl profile image
Logan Lindquist

Aww, I thought the memes were relevant for each of the points. This was my first actual post on here and tried to set it apart from the answers on Quora and Medium.

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ericson_weah_2543c732594c profile image
Dp • Edited

Don’t confuse β€œpopularity” with β€œfashion”! This claim is straight up wrong!!

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llbbl profile image
Logan Lindquist

Hey friend, don't take it personally. I looked at the data and considered the question before answering.