gRPC for PHP: Libraries, Installation, and Code Examples

gRPC for PHP: Libraries and Examples

gRPC is a modern high-performance framework for remote procedure calls (RPC), developed by Google. It uses HTTP/2 for transport, Protocol Buffers (protobuf) for data serialization, and supports many languages, including PHP. In this article, we will cover how to integrate gRPC into a PHP project, what libraries are needed, and write a working example of client-server interaction.

Why gRPC in PHP?

Traditional REST APIs often work via JSON and HTTP/1.1, which leads to data redundancy and slow serialization. gRPC solves these problems:

• Binary protocol — protobuf takes up less space than JSON and processes faster.
• HTTP/2 — multiplexing, header compression, streaming.
• Strong typing — contracts are described in .proto files, simplifying development and debugging.
• Bidirectional streaming — server and client can exchange data asynchronously.

Main Libraries for gRPC in PHP

To work with gRPC in PHP, two components are required:

• grpc.so — PHP extension (C extension) implementing HTTP/2 and the gRPC protocol.
• protobuf.so — extension for protobuf serialization (alternative — pure PHP package google/protobuf).
• Composer packages: grpc/grpc and google/protobuf.

The recommended installation method is via PECL (extensions) and Composer (dependencies).

Installing gRPC and protobuf

For Linux servers (Ubuntu/Debian):

# Install extensions via PECLsudo pecl install grpcsudo pecl install protobuf

# Add to php.iniecho "extension=grpc.so" >> /etc/php/8.2/cli/php.iniecho "extension=protobuf.so" >> /etc/php/8.2/cli/php.ini

For Windows, download DLL files from PECL and specify them in php.ini.

Next, install the libraries via Composer:

composer require grpc/grpccomposer require google/protobuf

Creating a .proto File

Let's describe a service for working with users. Create a file user.proto:

syntax = "proto3";

package user;

service UserService {    rpc GetUser (UserRequest) returns (UserResponse);    rpc ListUsers (Empty) returns (UserList);}

message UserRequest {    int32 id = 1;}

message UserResponse {    int32 id = 1;    string name = 2;    string email = 3;}

message Empty {}

message UserList {    repeated UserResponse users = 1;}

Generating PHP Classes from .proto

Install protoc and the PHP plugin:

# Download protoc from https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases# Then generate the code:protoc --php_out=./generated --grpc_out=./generated --plugin=protoc-gen-grpc=/usr/local/bin/grpc_php_plugin user.proto

In the generated folder, classes will appear: UserRequest, UserResponse, UserServiceClient, etc.

Example gRPC Server in PHP

Let's create a server that will respond to requests. File server.php:

require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';require_once __DIR__ . '/generated/UserServiceServer.php';

use Grpc\\Server;use User\\UserServiceServer;use User\\UserRequest;use User\\UserResponse;

class MyUserService extends UserServiceServer{    public function GetUser(\\Grpc\\ServerCallReader $request, \\Grpc\\ServerCallWriter $response, \\Grpc\\ServerContext $context): void    {        $req = $request->read();        $id = $req->getId();

        $user = new UserResponse();        $user->setId($id);        $