FrankenPHP: A Modern PHP App Server in Go (Install + Use)

FrankenPHP is a modern PHP app server built on Go and using the Caddy server under the hood. The standout feature that caught my eye was its standalone and self-contained binary, which can be easily downloaded and used without requiring any installation.

In a single binary file, it aims to provide you with a PHP app server, a Caddy server, popular PHP extensions, native support for HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3, and much more that can truly enhance the experience, allowing developers to easily develop portable applications or quickly deploy their PHP applications to production.

It’s truly a modern PHP app server, and we’ll discuss more about its features, installation, and usage in this article, so read it till the end.

Tutorial Details

Features of FrankenPHP

The following is a list of features that truly set it apart from its competitors.

• A standalone, self-executable, dependency-free binary file built using Go and C.
• It doesn’t rely on PHP-FPM; instead, it uses its own SAPI, specially crafted for Go web servers.
• It is 3.5x faster than FPM, according to their benchmarks, and improves website load times by 30%.
• It is wrapped with the latest PHP 8, popular PHP extensions, (automatic HTTPS, HTTP/3, Brotli compression, etc.) powered by Caddy.
• It provides native support for Symfony, API Platform, and Laravel.
• Once launched, the application is stored in memory and handles incoming requests in milliseconds.
• It offers a defined format and a specialized logging mechanism.
• It automatically generates, renews, and revokes HTTPS certificates.

How to Install FrankenPHP on Linux

First of all, it doesn’t require any installation; you can either use a Docker or directly download the standalone binary file from the project release page for Linux and macOS, give it executable permission, and then run it like a shell script with root or sudo privileges.

#With Docker
$ docker run -v $PWD:/app/public -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 443:443/udp dunglas/frankenphp

#With a Standalone Binary File
$ chmod +x frankenphp                                                         #First, Give it a Executable Permission.
$ sudo ./frankenphp php-server                                           #Serve the Content of the Current Directory.
#OR
$ sudo ./frankenphp php-cli /path/to/your/script.php    #Serve the Content of the Assigned Script in CLI.

How to Use FrankenPHP

The usage is pretty simple; to serve your PHP file, simply place the FrankenPHP binary file in the same directory and execute the following command:

$ sudo ./frankenphp php-server

Output:

To execute a PHP script file in your terminal, specify the following command with the path to the PHP script file as an argument:

$ sudo ./frankenphp php-cli /var/www/html/index.php

Output:

Most libraries require the HTTPS protocol to function. Therefore, to serve your PHP page using the HTTPS protocol, you can use the following command:

$ sudo ./frankenphp php-server -d localhost

Output:

To share your file locally or remotely via the file server, use the FrankenPHP built-in file server with a beautiful UI using the following command:

$ sudo ./frankenphp file-server                                                        #Start the file server.
#OR
$ sudo ./frankenphp file-server -b                                                   #Serve the Current Directory.
#OR
$ sudo ./frankenphp file-server -b -d localhost                             #Serve the Files in HTTPS protocol.

Output:

Lastly, there are many ways to use FrankenPHP, but the article will become too long. Instead, I suggest checking out the following table for other command usages with their descriptions.

Also, check out the documentation page for information about various configuration settings.

Final Word

I hope you find this article useful, and if you want to know more about FrankenPHP, then do let me know in the comments, as I eagerly await your responses.

Till then, peace!