Your first steps with PHP
What PHP is, what it can do, and everything you need to start building with it.
PHP is, by a significant margin, the most popular server-side web programming language. It's used by a vast majority (historically over 80% [1]) of websites whose server-side language is known. It powers systems that deliver text, images, interactive elements, community discussions, and countless other features. Think about it, huge sites like Facebook were originally built on PHP (though their stack has evolved significantly). It's a great language for beginners to pick up due to its large community support network and abundant learning resources.
2026 update Treat that “80%” as a broad historical figure rather than a live stat — the measured share drifts year to year and only counts sites whose server-side language is detectable. PHP is still the dominant server-side language on the public web, and PHP 8.4 is the current stable release, with the language markedly faster and stricter than the versions around when this was first written.
PHP is used across the internet to dynamically construct web pages. Instead of serving static, unchanging files, PHP allows a website to generate content on-the-fly, tailoring it to the user or specific conditions. This provides a much richer experience than static HTML pages.
Beyond generating HTML, PHP can perform complex operations behind the scenes, such as:
Functionality like contact forms, online shopping carts, community forums, photo upload sites, social networks, and much more can all be built using PHP as the foundation. It’s an extremely flexible language. Really, the possibilities are vast.
PHP can dynamically build pages based on user input. A user might select an item from a shop list, and PHP can generate a detailed product description page. Or they might fill in a contact form, and PHP processes that data and sends an email, without ever exposing your email address directly on the site.
Officially, PHP is a recursive acronym standing for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". Yeah, a bit of a programmer's joke! A more historical (and perhaps sensible) explanation is that it originally stood for "Personal Home Page," stemming from software developed by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 to maintain his own website.
These days, PHP is still used for personal homepages, but also for business websites, online directories, massive e-commerce stores, complex web applications... the list goes on. While critics might point out perceived shortcomings compared to other languages, there's no denying PHP's capability and widespread use in powering a huge number of websites, including major platforms like WordPress and Laravel.
You don't need prior programming knowledge to get started with PHP, though basic HTML familiarity (understanding tags like
<p>, <a>, <form>) is helpful.
You need a program to write your code. Avoid word processors like MS Word. Good choices include:
A good code editor will offer syntax highlighting (making code easier to read) and other helpful features.
PHP code needs to be executed by the PHP interpreter, usually running on a web server. You have a few options:
php -S localhost:8000), but it's not suitable for complex applications or production.2026 update If you’re starting today, the smoothest local setups are the dedicated ones: Laravel Herd (a free, zero-config native PHP environment for macOS and Windows) for general PHP and Laravel work, DDEV (Docker-based, great for WordPress/Drupal/Laravel and team parity), and Laravel Sail (a thin Docker wrapper that ships with new Laravel projects). They spare you the manual Apache/PHP/MySQL juggling the bundled packages above involved.
This is just a basic introduction. As you progress, you'll encounter situations requiring further research. Thankfully, because PHP is so popular, finding answers via search engines (like Google) is usually easy. Websites like Stack Overflow are invaluable resources.
The tutorials that follow this introduction (in the original series) aim to provide a gradual learning curve, starting simple and moving to more complex examples. They don't aim to cover everything but should provide a good foundation. For comprehensive details, the official PHP documentation at php.net is an excellent and essential resource.
[1] Source cited in original article: w3techs.com (Usage statistics change over time, but PHP remains extremely widely used on the server-side).
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