Comment by shepherdjerred
21 hours ago
Honest question, who uses php anymore?
I know there must be a ton of random sites which makes this a huge deal.
But, does it affect any big players? I think php is big at Meta but I would imagine its so heavily customized it might be safe from this.
4,384,302 PHP services on 1,886,612 unique hosts apparently[0]
[0] https://modat.io/blog/php-exposure-before-the-21-oct-2026-se...
Writers/editors really, really like Wordpress for some reason, which is like 40% of the Internet, add to that all the other Php stuff. At $DAY_JOB we have a Wordpress instance behind our VPN and use the json API to send the articles to a front-end server written in something else. Forces us to duplicate some of the front-end plugin code (and we try to not use many) but we get peace of mind in exchange.
There's a pretty huge UCaaS software suite that serves millions of seats across the US that runs on PHP 7.4.
Not really. Just little sites like Wikipedia.
And 70% of the web. Nothing important.
WordPress(PHP CMS) itself peaked in 2025 at 43.6% of all WWW sites. It is an insane number.
I use PHP.
Just as a scripting language on my own laptop, nothing prod. But one thing I notice, even coming back to it after a little while, even after using Python for everything, I find I am effortlessly productive with it.
There was an article I read recently about a blind developer who finds it easy to write in, as the "$" for the variable names makes it easier for him to identify what's going on in any given line of code.
Like any language it has advantages and disadvantages.
I think I found the article you alluded to: https://thephp.foundation/blog/2026/06/16/php-through-a-scre...
The "Syntax as landmarks" section sounds like he's comparing it particularly to Python. The quirk of `$` denoting a variable did kind of work out for him. Especially compared to Python where you declare a variable by assigning it. But it's not like PHP was designed with a special character for each syntax role. He still needs to use context to infer other roles.
PHP has the advantage of being preinstalled or easy to install in a lot of environments. I had to investigate the blind developer thing because I'm still on the hunt for a second advantage.
blind developer prefers PHP !? just wow
I think the ubiquiti edgerouter admin interfaces use PHP. I don’t know about mikrotik, but wouldn’t surprise me if there are a lot of those devices hanging off the internet on some nonstandard port.
Mikrotik developers would never stoop so low as to use a scripting language written by someone else.
Used to. Newer firmware stopped using PHP.
[flagged]
What are you gonna say when your favourite language gets a vulnerability report with an AI generated exploit chain?
I don't have a "favorite" language. I see languages and communities having strengths and weakness..I evaluate languages as being suitable or unsuitable for certain job..
If a language gets frequently get vulnerability reports, it will change my evaluation...
Php's should have been evaluated out for web applications a long time ago, if the development community was rational, but sadly its made up of far too many emotional people who takes everything personal...