Chatbots in PHP: A Practical Guide for Beginners

Introduction: Why PHP is a Great Choice for a Chatbot?

Have you ever wondered how those smart assistants that answer questions in Telegram, VK, or on a website work? Many people think that to create a chatbot you need to know Python or Node.js. But the truth is that a chatbot in PHP is not only possible, but also very convenient. PHP is a mature language with a huge community, and it is great for rapid prototyping and launching bots.

In this guide, we will go from complete scratch to a working Telegram bot in PHP. We will cover two approaches: a simple echo bot on Localhost and a bot with a database connection. Spoiler: there will be a lot of code that you can copy and run right now.

What is a Chatbot and How Does It Work?

Before writing code, let's understand the architecture. A chatbot is a program that receives a message from a user, processes it, and sends a response. In the context of Telegram (the most popular platform for bots), the scheme looks like this:

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• The user writes to the bot in Telegram.
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• Telegram sends a POST request to your server (Webhook) or you constantly poll the server yourself (Long Polling).
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• Your PHP script processes the request and sends a response via the Telegram API.
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We will use Webhook — this is a modern and fast method. Imagine Telegram knocking on your server's door every time a new message arrives. Convenient, right?

Preparation: What Do You Need to Start?

To create a simple chatbot in PHP, you will need:

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• Hosting or a local server (OpenServer, XAMPP, MAMP) with PHP 7.4+.
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• Internet access (to register the bot in Telegram).
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• Basic knowledge of PHP (variables, functions, working with JSON).
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If you don't have hosting, don't worry — during the testing phase you can use Localhost with the ngrok utility, which creates a temporary public URL. But more on that later.

Step 1. Registering a Bot in Telegram

Go to Telegram, find BotFather (the official bot for creating bots) and type the command /newbot. Answer the questions: give a name (e.g., MyTestBot) and a username (must end with bot, e.g., my_test_pythonlib_bot).

After successful registration, BotFather will give you a token — this is the API access key. It looks like this: 123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11. Save it in a safe place (preferably in a .env file, but for simplicity we will hardcode it for now).

Important: Do not show your token to anyone! This is the password for your bot.

Step 2. The Simplest Echo Bot in PHP (Webhook)

Create a file bot.php in the root of your website. This script will receive requests from Telegram and respond with the same text (echo).

<?php\n// Get data from Telegram\n$content = file_get_contents("php://input");\n$update = json_decode($content, true);\n\n// Check if there is a message\nif (!$update) {\n    exit;\n}\n\n// Extract chat ID and message text\n$chat_id = $update['message']['chat']['id'];\n$text = $update['message']['text'];\n\n// Your bot token\n$token = "YOUR_TOKEN_HERE";\n\n// Send response (echo)\n$url = "https://api.telegram.org/bot{$token}/sendMessage";\n$data = [\n    'chat_id' => $chat_id,\n    'text' => "You wrote: " . $text\n];\n\n// Use cURL to send the request\n$ch = curl_init();\ncurl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);\ncurl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);\ncurl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);\ncurl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);\n$result = curl_exec($ch);\ncurl_close($ch);\n?>

How does it work?

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1. Telegram sends a POST request to your file bot.php.
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2. We read the in