FrankenPHP
Hacker ApprovedRanked 5 of 8 web servers by recommenders
A fast PHP server that bundles Caddy, needs no separate PHP runtime, and can ship as one executable. Critics warn that worker mode keeps state between requests.
A fast PHP server that bundles Caddy, needs no separate PHP runtime, and can ship as one executable. Critics warn that worker mode keeps state between requests.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 94%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 15 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Excellent performance
“The performance is amazing, the Go Bridge allows easy extension, and it’s rock solid.”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “PHP 8.6 Closure Optimizations” “give you the speed of Swoole / FrankenPHP”
Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “I built the fastest PHP webserver in the world” Built-in PHP and Caddy, no runtime
“it runs caddy, doesn't need an external php runtime and also lets you bundle your app as a single executable.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Standalone webserver written in pure PHP. No more need for nginx, php-fpm, etc.” “frankenphp checks a lot of boxes here, go to handle the threads with php built in”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “PHP 8.6 Closure Optimizations” Simple single-binary deployment
“it runs caddy, doesn't need an external php runtime and also lets you bundle your app as a single executable.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Standalone webserver written in pure PHP. No more need for nginx, php-fpm, etc.” “FrankenPHP's static build (which was ready very quickly)”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “PHP 8.2.35” “my god even the deployment experience got 10x better”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Learn PHP in 2026 (Yes, Really)” Stable and well built
“The performance is amazing, the Go Bridge allows easy extension, and it’s rock solid.”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “PHP 8.6 Closure Optimizations” “excellent non vibe-coded web server called FrankenPHP”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Frankensqlite a Rust reimplementation of SQLite with concurrent writers”
Other web servers people recommend
The four most recommended other web servers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nginx | 130 | 44 | 75% | 12 | 15 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| Caddy | 114 | 10 | 92% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Apache HTTP Server | 52 | 32 | 62% | 12 | 10 yrs5 owners | — |
| Zeroserve | 17 | 8 | 68% | 1 | — | — |
| FrankenPHPThis page | 15 | 1 | 94% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
17 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a new official interface much more suitable for containers”
“FrankenPHP's static build (which was ready very quickly)”
“Swoole and FrankenPHP can't do that.”
“require you to rewrite all your code to use their libraries”
“give you the speed of Swoole / FrankenPHP”
“negate much of that overhead (in worker mode)”
“I think making it evented for HTTP is clutching defeat from the jaws of victory.”
“FrankenPHP workers persist between requests, which means every static variable, singleton, and global cache in your app”
“it runs caddy, doesn't need an external php runtime and also lets you bundle your app as a single executable.”
“FrankenPHP is really good”
“my god even the deployment experience got 10x better”
“FrankenPHP is everything I wanted out of a modern PHP web server.”
“The performance is amazing, the Go Bridge allows easy extension, and it’s rock solid.”
“frankenphp checks a lot of boxes here, go to handle the threads with php built in”
“there are very decent options for long running processes/application servers these days”
“excellent non vibe-coded web server called FrankenPHP”
“The FrankenPHP binary installed by Laravel Octane is version-locked.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.