PHP is Back on Top: Why Developers Love It on StackOverflow

PHP is back on top: why developers love the "good old" language

The annual StackOverflow developer survey is one of the most authoritative snapshots of IT community opinions. In 2024, the results surprised many: PHP took third place in the "most loved programming languages" category, behind only Rust and TypeScript. At the same time, PHP surpassed Python, Go, and even C#.

For a language that was called "ugly" and "outdated" for many years, this result is a true comeback. Let's figure out what lies behind this love.

Numbers that speak for themselves

• Top 3 most loved languages: Rust (83%), TypeScript (73%), PHP (71%).
• Most used language for the web: PHP remains on the server side for 78% of sites with a known backend language.
• Salary ranking: PHP developers are in the top 10 by income among all languages (survey data).

Why is PHP loved again?

There are several reasons, and they are not related to nostalgia:

• Language evolution. PHP 8.x brought JIT compilation, attributes, union types, and powerful match expressions. Modern PHP bears little resemblance to the "scripting chaos" of the 2000s.
• The Laravel ecosystem. This framework has become an industry standard — with elegant syntax, a powerful ORM, and built-in testing support.
• Ease of entry. PHP remains one of the easiest languages to start a career with. A good PHP developer is always in demand.
• Community and documentation. On StackOverflow, over 1.5 million answers have been given for PHP — it is one of the most active sections.

Myths about PHP that need to be debunked

• "PHP is slow" — with PHP 8.1+, it outperforms Python and Ruby in synthetic benchmarks.
• "PHP is only used for legacy code" — Facebook, Wikipedia, Slack, Etsy, and even part of WordPress (which is also constantly improving) run on PHP.
• "PHP is not secure" — security depends on the developer, not the language. Modern frameworks protect against XSS and SQL injections "out of the box".

What this means for beginners and pros

If you are just starting to program — PHP is an excellent start. You will be able to see results quickly, and the demand for junior developers is stable. For experienced engineers, PHP 8.x opens up opportunities for high-load projects and microservices.

The StackOverflow survey results are not just about "popularity". It is a market signal: PHP is alive, evolving, and remains one of the most comfortable languages for web development.

Do you work with PHP? Share in the comments what you like about it and what you would like to see improved.