zephir-lang/zephir

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

3386 stars · 462 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Zephir is a high-level, statically/dynamically typed programming language with a compiler CLI that transpiles code to C for building PHP extensions. It offers memory safety without pointers and compiles via gcc, clang, or Visual C++ into loadable PHP shared libraries.

Use cases

• write php extensions in a high level language
• compile php code to c extension
• speed up php framework with native extension
• create php extension without learning c
• build phalcon-style php extension
• generate c code from php-like syntax

When to choose

• you want to write fast PHP extensions without hand-writing C
• you maintain or extend Phalcon or similar extension-based frameworks
• you want type and memory safety while targeting PHP internals

When to avoid

• you need a general-purpose language outside the PHP extension ecosystem
• you require direct pointer-level control or C interop beyond PHP APIs
• your project is pure PHP with no performance-critical hot paths

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

compiler programming-language developer-tools programming-languages compilers developer-tools web-development windows php cli cross-platform php-extensions c-extensions php-internals static-typing memory-safety phalcon linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="zephir-lang/zephir")