# php/frankenphp

🧟 The modern PHP app server

Repository: https://github.com/php/frankenphp
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/frankenphp
Homepage: https://frankenphp.dev
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: caddy, go, php, sapi, worker, frankenphp
Last push: 2026-08-25T21:03:57+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 96, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1622, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 26, "gap_med": 12.0, "n_releases_24m": 33}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 11310, forks 479 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:46.701838+00:00)

## What it is
FrankenPHP is a modern PHP application server built on top of the Caddy web server, embedding the official PHP executor in a Go binary. It provides automatic HTTPS, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, worker mode for long-running PHP apps, Early Hints, real-time capabilities via Mercure, hot reloading, and can embed PHP apps as standalone self-executable binaries.

## Use cases
- serve a PHP application with automatic HTTPS and HTTP/3 in one command
- run Laravel or Symfony faster with worker mode
- run WordPress with a modern production-grade stack
- package a PHP app as a standalone self-contained binary
- embed the PHP interpreter in a Go application via net/http
- replace nginx + php-fpm with a single binary
- run PHP scripts from the command line without installing PHP

## When to choose
- you want a single, dependency-free binary to serve PHP apps in production
- you need high performance for Laravel/Symfony via worker mode or Octane
- you want automatic TLS certificates, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, and Early Hints out of the box
- you want to distribute a PHP application as a self-executable binary
- you want to embed PHP inside a Go program

## When to avoid
- you rely on PHP extensions not bundled or hard to compile into the static binary
- your hosting environment mandates traditional Apache/nginx + php-fpm setups
- you need shared-hosting style per-directory PHP configuration
- your app is incompatible with long-running worker mode and you don't need its other features

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: http-server, web-framework, cli, deployment
- domain: web-development, backend, developer-tools, self-hosted
- platform: windows, go, php, cross-platform
- tags: php-app-server, caddy, worker-mode, early-hints, http3, automatic-https, standalone-binary, sapi, mercure, hot-reload, linux, macos, docker

## Member repositories
- php/frankenphp (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:46.701838+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:15:58.255988+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/php/frankenphp (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:46.701838+00:00, sha 0cd087a0737a)
  - homepage: https://frankenphp.dev (fetched 2026-08-29T08:14:43.270643+00:00, sha 56b66c90cc86)
  - site_page: https://frankenphp.dev/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T08:14:43.280208+00:00, sha d1fc0a36bfcd)
  - site_page: https://frankenphp.dev/docs/embed (fetched 2026-08-29T08:14:43.282306+00:00, sha ebf898dcc53c)
  - site_page: https://frankenphp.dev/docs/wordpress (fetched 2026-08-29T08:14:43.284269+00:00, sha 46b883e32b50)
  - site_page: https://frankenphp.dev/docs/laravel (fetched 2026-08-29T08:14:43.286236+00:00, sha 11239c28828b)
  - site_page: https://frankenphp.dev/docs/docker (fetched 2026-08-29T08:14:43.287982+00:00, sha 0246882053b5)
  - site_page: https://frankenphp.dev/docs/worker (fetched 2026-08-29T08:14:43.289913+00:00, sha 0ba955a33819)
  - site_page: https://frankenphp.dev/docs/early-hints (fetched 2026-08-29T08:14:43.291759+00:00, sha 173a216c4362)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.