leafsphp/leaf

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1310 stars · 70 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

Leaf is a lightweight, modular PHP framework focused on developer experience, rapid development, and high performance for web apps and APIs. It offers a minimal core with optional installable modules (auth, database, queues, mail) and AI-readable project context introduced in Leaf 5.

Use cases

• build a rest api in php quickly
• lightweight php micro-framework for small web apps
• rapidly prototype a php backend without heavy framework bloat
• add auth and database to a php app incrementally
• serve endpoints with minimal setup
• use a php framework that works well with ai coding assistants
• build an mvc php application with modular packages

When to choose

• you want a slim, fast PHP framework with a shallow learning curve
• you prefer modular architecture where you install only what you need
• you're building APIs or small-to-medium web apps rapidly
• you want AI tools to understand your project structure and conventions
• you need compatibility with plain PHP packages and existing projects

When to avoid

• you need a batteries-included enterprise framework with a huge ecosystem like Laravel or Symfony
• your team relies on framework-specific tooling and conventions from larger ecosystems
• you require extensive built-in features out of the box without installing modules

Facets

framework · maturity active

web-framework api-framework routing middleware auth templating web-development backend apis php cli micro-framework mvc rest-api ai-native modular developer-experience web-server

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="leafsphp/leaf")