FrankenPHP
A modern PHP application server built on Caddy, featuring worker mode, HTTP/3, and real-time capabilities.
What is FrankenPHP?
FrankenPHP is a modern PHP application server built on the Caddy web server. It provides high-performance features like worker mode, HTTP/3 support, and real-time capabilities to accelerate PHP applications. It works with any PHP framework and can also be embedded as a Go library in other applications.
PHP developers working with frameworks like Laravel, Symfony, or WordPress who want to improve application performance and leverage modern web standards. It's also for developers looking to embed PHP within Go applications.
Developers choose FrankenPHP for its performance gains through worker mode, built-in modern HTTP support, and real-time features, all while maintaining compatibility with existing PHP codebases. Its integration with popular frameworks and availability as a Go library offer unique flexibility.
Overview
🧟 The modern PHP app server
Use Cases
Best For
- Accelerating Laravel or Symfony applications with persistent worker mode
- Serving PHP applications with modern HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support
- Adding real-time capabilities to PHP apps using Mercure
- Embedding PHP within Go applications as a library
- Deploying PHP apps in Docker containers with optimized performance
- Improving page load times with Early Hints (103 status code) support
Not Ideal For
- Projects heavily reliant on Apache .htaccess or Nginx configuration files for custom routing and security rules
- Teams with extensive PHP-FPM deployments and established monitoring/integration tooling
- Applications requiring obscure PHP extensions not included in the static binaries or supported by PIE
- Development workflows dependent on Xdebug or other debugging tools that may not work seamlessly with worker mode
Pros & Cons
Pros
Keeps PHP workers in memory to eliminate per-request bootstrapping, dramatically speeding up Laravel and Symfony apps with official framework integrations.
Delivers automatic HTTPS, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3 support out of the box via Caddy, improving security and performance without manual configuration.
Implements the 103 HTTP status code to send preliminary headers, allowing browsers to preload resources and boost page load times as documented.
Integrates Mercure directly for real-time updates, removing the need for separate WebSocket servers in PHP applications.
Cons
Installing additional PHP extensions often requires using the PIE tool or specific package managers, which is more complex than standard pecl or system package installations.
Relies on Caddy's configuration syntax, which differs from Apache/Nginx and may require time to learn for teams familiar with traditional setups.
Worker mode can interfere with traditional debugging tools like Xdebug, as noted in the known issues documentation, complicating development workflows.
Frequently Asked Questions
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