It seems like this question gets asked every year, as for some reason the perception surrounding PHP is that it is a language used by hobbyists, or a dying language - a programming language on its way out.

Before we take a look at "is PHP being used less," let's start with some critical points to consider when choosing a programming language to learn/ invest in.

PHP powers ~80% of the web

The first point is how popular PHP is as a program language. Recently in a podcast a debate around PHP was raised, with the question being is it an "enterprise" language. The argument against PHP is that it is not widely adopted by enterprises for enterprise application development - or apps that are traditionally developed in Java or .Net.

The key here is understanding that every tool has its strengths and weaknesses, and there are times where using a compiled language such as Java is a smarter move than using PHP. As always, you want to choose the right tool for the job, and PHP as a programming language excels for web applications. That's why today it powers nearly 80% of the websites on the internet! I want to repeat that number, nearly 80% of websites on the internet!

In the podcast, after the initial argument that PHP was not an enterprise language, I had one question to ask - "can you name one enterprise that doesn't use PHP?" Despite the misconception that PHP is not an enterprise language, nearly every enterprise utilizes PHP in some fashion (many for their website, blog, or internal tools). While PHP may not power the app they offer as a service (although for many companies it does), it powers just as critical of offerings that help drive success for the company.

PHP made Yahoo, Facebook, and Tumblr possible

It's not just personal blogs running on a WordPress install, or small sites running on Drupal (btw, both of these power high traffic, well known web properties), but PHP actually makes development for the web easier and faster. Because it is not a compiled language and is designed to scale, companies are able launch faster, add new features as they go, and grow to enormous scale.

Some of the sites that started with PHP include Yahoo, Facebook, Tumblr, Digg, Mailchimp, and Wikipedia! But it's not just older platforms that started off and have grown to scale with PHP - Etsy, Slack, Baidu, Box, and Canva also got started with PHP! Read why Slack chose PHP

In fact, according to BuiltWith, PHP powers 53.22% of the top 10k websites!

Programming languages don't just disappear

Understanding the prevalence of PHP today, and how often it is used is critical to understanding the longevity of PHP. Despite the radicalized idea, programming languages (and thus programming jobs) do not just disappear overnight. Today you can still find jobs writing code used in mainframes - such as Fortran or Cobol.

As long as companies have applications that use PHP, they'll need someone who knows PHP to maintain the application. And with PHP actively being developed and maintained (PHP 8 having just been released), and PHP powerhouses like WordPress, Drupal, SugarCRM, and others powering websites and apps around the world, it's a safe bet PHP won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

But with the basics out of the way, let's look at how PHP has faired over the years.

PHP usage over the years

While there is no exact measurement that determines how programming languages are ranked, there are several different rankings we can look at to see how a language has evolved over the years, and where it ranks today.

GitHub's most popular programming languages

Every year GitHub releases a report of the most popular languages being used to create repositories on GitHub.com. While this isn't an exact way to quantify a programming language, it does help us understand what languages developers are using and promoting for their applications. It also helps us see how lively the community itself is.

In 2014, PHP was ranked as the 3rd most popular programming language, being beat out only by JavaScript and Java. With the emergence of Typescript, C# moving open source, and increased usage of Python for AI - PHP did drop - and was the 6th most popular programming language on GitHub for 2020.

PHP's ranking on the Tiobe index

Another index for software popularity is the Tiobe index, which bases their ratings off of the number of search engines for programming languages. This index is heavily relied on by companies when making programming and investment decisions, especially in developer marketing.

Like with GitHub, PHP has also seen a decline in the Tiobe index. Ranked 8th last year for all languages, PHP dropped to 9th place, being outranked by the C languages (C, C#, C++), Java, Visual Basic, Python, JavaScript, and Assembly. However, to put the rankings in contrast, PHP is 9th out of the 274 languages Tiobe tracks, and bests SQL, Ruby, Groovy, Go, and Swift.

You can see the latest Tiobe index (updated monthly) at: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

PHP's ranking on BuiltWith

The last model we'll look at is BuiltWith. BuiltWith scans website headers to determine what a website is powered by, and like GitHub and Tiobe provides a ranking of programming language popularity and trends.

Builtwith provides an interesting perspective in that we can see an explosion of sites being built with PHP (nearly tripling from 2013 to 2016) before dropping and normalizing in 2017. From 2017 to present, the number of sites using PHP has remained almost constant.



This suggests (as with what we've seen with GitHub and Tiobe) that other languages have grown in popularity, such as JavaScript and Node.js. This doesn't mean that PHP is no longer being used or relied or, but rather that there is more competition and that there are other viable options whereas PHP stood alone at times in terms of being the goto language for web development.

Indeed, when we look at how PHP ranks amongst all technologies on BuiltWith, PHP receives the following BuiltWith awards:

• The most popular on the Entire Internet in Frameworks category.

• The most popular in the Top 10k sites in Frameworks category.

• The most popular in the Top 100k sites in Frameworks category.

• The most popular in the Top 1 Million sites in Frameworks category.

Conclusion

PHP's popularity has dropped from its height 10 years ago, however it still remains the most popular programming language powering the web. It's important to remember that every tool has pros and cons, and some of the bad rap PHP gets is when compared to languages designed to accomplish tasks or build programs that PHP was never designed to.

It's also important to remember a lot of early criticism for PHP came from it being a procedural programming language and not encompassing Object Oriented Programming capabilities. These capabilities were added in PHP 4 and with PHP 7 & 8 OOP has become a staple of the PHP language.

PHP is a viable, powerful language used by nearly every enterprise and many businesses large and small. In fact it powers over 50% of the top 10,000 websites on the web! With such large usage, popular tools such as WordPress, and an active community, it is safe to assume that PHP will remain a prominent language for years to come.

Installing composer

Composer is a package management tool for PHP. Laravel requires composer for installation. We can download composer from https://getcomposer.org/download/

After installation that you can test whether composer installed or not by command
composer

Installing Laravel

The current stable version of laravel is laravel 5.6. We can install laravel package with three ways.

In command prompt or terminal by running composer global require "laravel/installer" and then Laravel new

or

We can create the project with Composer by running composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel

or

Directly clone from github
git clone https://github.com/laravel/laravel/tree/master and after that composer update

Laravel local development server

Run the below command in command prompt or terminal
PHP artisan serve

Above command will start to local development servehttp://localhost:8000 or if you want to change default port:

php artisan serve --port 

Generating charts and graphs

We are using consoletvs package for generating charts. So for installation we can first move inside to our project using command prompt or terminal. We are following the below steps to install

Step 1:

First we need to install ConsoleTVs/Charts composer package inside our laravel project.

composer require consoletvs/charts

Step 2:

After successfully installation of above package, open app/config.php and add service provider.
In config/app.php

'providers' => [
....
ConsoleTVs\Charts\ChartsServiceProvider::class,
],

After the service provider we need to add alias

'aliases' => [
....
'Charts' => ConsoleTVs\Charts\Facades\Charts::class,
]

Step 3

We need to configure of database for application. We can configure in either .env file or config/database.php file.

Step 4

We can migrate our default tables that is user. We can find the table in database/migration folder.

Step 5

We can generate dummy records for demo in users table. For creating dummy records, we need to run the below command in command prompt or terminal

php artisan tinker>>> factory(App\User::class, 20)->create();

the above command will create a set of 20 records.

If we need to add more records we need to run the above command or we can increase the count as much as we want. For example

php artisan tinker>>> factory(App\User::class, 2000)->create();

Step 6Creating controller

For creating controller we need to run below command in terminal or command prompt

php artisan make controller:<controller_name>

Step 7Adding the routes

We can add the routes for navigating our application. You can find routes file inside routes folder. Before 5.4 we can find routes.php file itself, now its web.php. If you are using laravel 5.2 routes.php will inside app/http folder.

So inside web.php:

Route::get('create-chart/{type}','ChartController@makeChart');

Here type will be the parameter we are passing and it will focus to makeChart() function inside chartcontroller

Step 8

Import charts to controller, for that in the namespace section add:

Use charts;

Step 9

We can put the below code into chartController

public function makeChart($type)
 {
 switch ($type) {
 case 'bar':
 $users = User::where(DB::raw("(DATE_FORMAT(created_at,'%Y'))"),date('Y')) 
 ->get();
 $chart = Charts::database($users, 'bar', 'highcharts') 
 ->title("Monthly new Register Users") 
 ->elementLabel("Total Users") 
 ->dimensions(1000, 500) 
 ->responsive(true) 
 ->groupByMonth(date('Y'), true);
 break;
 case 'pie':
 $chart = Charts::create('pie', 'highcharts')
 ->title('HDTuto.com Laravel Pie Chart')
 ->labels(['Codeigniter', 'Laravel', 'PHP'])
 ->values([5,10,20])
 ->dimensions(1000,500)
 ->responsive(true);
 break;
 case 'donut':
 $chart = Charts::create('donut', 'highcharts')
 ->title('HDTuto.com Laravel Donut Chart')
 ->labels(['First', 'Second', 'Third'])
 ->values([5,10,20])
 ->dimensions(1000,500)
 ->responsive(true);
 break;
 case 'line':
 $chart = Charts::create('line', 'highcharts')
 ->title('HDTuto.com Laravel Line Chart')
 ->elementLabel('HDTuto.com Laravel Line Chart Lable')
 ->labels(['First', 'Second', 'Third'])
 ->values([5,10,20])
 ->dimensions(1000,500)
 ->responsive(true);
 break;
 case 'area':
 $chart = Charts::create('area', 'highcharts')
 ->title('HDTuto.com Laravel Area Chart')
 ->elementLabel('HDTuto.com Laravel Line Chart label')
 ->labels(['First', 'Second', 'Third'])
 ->values([5,10,20])
 ->dimensions(1000,500)
 ->responsive(true);
 break;
 case 'geo':
 $chart = Charts::create('geo', 'highcharts')
 ->title('HDTuto.com Laravel GEO Chart')
 ->elementLabel('HDTuto.com Laravel GEO Chart label')
 ->labels(['ES', 'FR', 'RU'])
 ->colors(['#3D3D3D', '#985689'])
 ->values([5,10,20])
 ->dimensions(1000,500)
 ->responsive(true);
 break;
 default:
 break;
 }
 return view('chart', compact('chart'));
 }

Step 10

Create a blade file. Blade is the view file used inside the laravel. You can add new blade file with any name with an extension of .blade.php
Here we are creating chart.blade.php

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
 <head>
 <meta charset="utf-8">
 <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
 <title>My Charts</title>
 {!! Charts::styles() !!}
 </head>
 <body>
 
 <div class="app">
 <center>
 {!! $chart->html() !!}
 </center>
 </div>
 
 {!! Charts::scripts() !!}
 {!! $chart->script() !!}
 </body>
</html>

Step 11

We can run our laravel application in local development server by php artisan serve command:

http://localhost:8000/create-chart/bar
http://localhost:8000/create-chart/pie
http://localhost:8000/create-chart/donut
http://localhost:8000/create-chart/line
http://localhost:8000/create-chart/area
http://localhost:8000/create-chart/geo

In the above example we was creating line chart, geo chart, bar chart, pie chart, donut chart, line chart and area chart. We can also create gauge chart, progressbar chart, areaspline chart, scatter chart, percentage chart etc using consoletvs charts composer package.

There are a lot of jQuery libraries also available like amcharts, chartjs, highcharts, google, material, chartist, fusioncharts, morris, plottablejs etc. However, using this plugin we can easily create charts without having to use jQuery, another advantage to building it in with Laravel.

Today, I will share with you how to create a PDF file from HTML blade file in Laravel 5.7. We will be using dompdf package for generating the PDF file.

In the below example, we will install barryvdh/laravel-dompdf using composer package and thereafter we will add new route url with controller. Then we will create a blade file. Then after we have to just run project with serve and we can check the PDF file is for download.

Download Laravel 5.7

Now I am going to explain the step by step from scratch with laravel installation for dompdf. To get started, we need to download fresh Laravel 5.7 application using command, so open our terminal and run the below command in the command prompt:

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel blog

Install laravel-dompdf Package

Now we will install barryvdh/laravel-dompdf composer package by using the following composer command in ourLlaravel 5.7 application.

composer require barryvdh/laravel-dompdf

Then the package is successfully installed in our application, after that open config/app.php file and we need to add alias and service provider.
config/app.php

'providers' => [
....
Barryvdh\DomPDF\ServiceProvider::class,
],
 
'aliases' => [
....
'PDF' => Barryvdh\DomPDF\Facade::class,
]

Create Routes

Now we need to create routes for the items listing. so now open our "routes/web.php" file and we need to add following route.
routes/web.php

Route::get('demo-generate-pdf','HomeController@demoGeneratePDF');

Create Controller

Here,we need to create a new controllerHomeController (mostly it will be there, we can skip this step if we don't need to create a controller) that will manage our pdf generation using the generatePDF() method of route.
app/Http/Controllers/HomeController.php

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use PDF;

class HomeController extends Controller
{
 public function demoGeneratePDF()
 {
 $data = ['title' => 'Welcome to My Blog'];
 $pdf = PDF::loadView('myPDF', $data);
 
 return $pdf->download('demo.pdf');
 }
}

Create Blade File

In the final step, let us create demoPDF.blade.php in the resources/views/demoPDF.blade.php for structure of pdf file and add the following code:
resources/views/demoPDF.blade.php

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hi</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to My BLOG - {{ $title }}</h1>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod
tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam,
quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo
consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse
cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non
proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p>
</body>
</html>

Now run the below command for serve and test it:

php artisan serve

Introduction

In a previous article we learned about Creating a PHP Daemon Service. Now we are going to learn how to use methods to perform IPC - Inter-Process Communication - to communicate with daemon processes.

Message Queues

In the world of UNIX, there is an incredible variety of ways to send a message or a command to a daemon script and vice versa. But first I want to talk only about message queues - "System V IPC Messages Queues".

A long time ago I learned that a queue can be either in the System V IPC implementation, or in the POSIX implementation. I want to comment only about the System V implementation, as I know it better.

Lets get started. At the "normal" operating system level, queues are stored in memory. Queue data structures are available to all system programs. Just as in the file system, it is possible to configure queues access rights and message size. Usually a queue message size is small, less than 8 KB.

This introductory part is over. Lets move on to the practice with same example scripts.queue-send.php

$key = ftok(__FILE__, 'A'); 
$queue = msg_get_queue($key);

msg_send($queue, 1, 'message, type 1');
msg_send($queue, 2, 'message, type 2');
msg_send($queue, 3, 'message, type 3');
msg_send($queue, 1, 'message, type 1');

echo "send 4 messages
";

queue-receive.php

$key = ftok('queue-send.php', 'A');
$queue = msg_get_queue($key);

for ($i = 1; $i <= 3; $i++) {
 echo "type: {$i}
";

 while ( msg_receive($queue, $i, $msgtype, 4096, $message, false, MSG_IPC_NOWAIT) ) {
 echo "type: {$i}, msgtype: {$msgtype}, message: {$message}
";
 }
}

Lets run on the first stage of the file queue-send.php, and then queue-receive.php.

u% php queue-send.php
send 4 messages
u% php queue-receive.php
type: 1
type: 1, msgtype: 1, message: s:15:"message, type 1";
type: 1, msgtype: 1, message: s:15:"message, type 1";
type: 2
type: 2, msgtype: 2, message: s:15:"message, type 2";
type: 3
type: 3, msgtype: 3, message: s:15:"message, type 3";

You may notice that the messages have been grouped. The first group gathered 2 messages of the first type, and then the remaining messages.

If we would have indicated to receive messages of type 0, you would get all messages, regardless of the type.

while (msg_receive($queue, $i, $msgtype, 4096, $message, false, MSG_IPC_NOWAIT)) {

Here it is worth noting another feature of the queues: if we do not use the constant MSG_IPC_NOWAIT in the script and run the script queue-receive.php from a terminal, and then run periodically the file queue-send.php, we see how a daemon can effectively use this to wait jobs.queue-receive-wait.php

$key = ftok('queue-send.php', 'A');
$queue = msg_get_queue($key);

while ( msg_receive($queue, 0, $msgtype, 4096, $message) ) {
 echo "msgtype: {$msgtype}, message: {$message}
";
}

Actually that is the most interesting information of all I have said. There are also functions to get statistics, disposal and checking for the existence of queues.

Lets now try to write a daemon listening to a queue:queue-daemon.php

$pid = pcntl_fork();
$key = ftok('queue-send.php', 'A');
$queue = msg_get_queue($key);

if ($pid == -1) {
 exit;
} elseif ($pid) {
 exit;
} else {
 while ( msg_receive($queue, 0, $msgtype, 4096, $message) ) {
 echo "msgtype: {$msgtype}, message: {$message}
";
 }
}

posix_setsid();

Shared Memory

We have learned to work with queues, with which you can send small system messages. But then we may certainly be faced with the task of transmitting large amounts of data. My favorite type of system, System V, has solved the problem of rapid transmission and preservation of large data in memory using a mechanism calledShared Memory.

In short, the data in the Shared Memory lives until the system is rebooted. Since the data is in memory, it works much faster than if it was stored in a database somewhere in a file, or, God forgive me on a network share.

Lets try to write a simple example of data storage.shared-memory-write-base.php

$id = ftok(__FILE__, 'A');


$shmId = shm_attach($id);

$var = 1;

if (shm_has_var($shmId, $var)) {
 $data = (array) shm_get_var($shmId, $var);
} else {
 $data = array();
}

$data[time()] = file_get_contents(__FILE__);

shm_put_var($shmId, $var, $data);

Run this script several times to save the value in memory. Now lets write a script only to read from the memory.shared-memory-read-base.php

$id = ftok(__DIR__ . '/shared-memory-write-base.php', 'A');
$shmId = shm_attach($id);
$var = 1; 

if (shm_has_var($shmId, $var)) {
 $data = (array) shm_get_var($shmId, $var);
} else {
 $data = array();
}

foreach ($data as $key => $value) {
 $path = "/tmp/$key.php";
 file_put_contents($path, $value);

 echo $path . PHP_EOL;
} 

Semaphores

So, in general terms, it should be clear for you by now how to work with shared memory. The only problems left to figure out are about a couple of nuances, such as: "What to do if two processes want to record one block of memory?" Or "How to store binary files of any size?".

To prevent simultaneous accesses we will use semaphores. Semaphores allow us to flag that we want to have exclusive access to some resource, like for instance a shared memory block. While that happens other processes will wait for their turn on semaphore.

In this code it explained clearly:shared-memory-semaphors.php

$id = ftok(__FILE__, 'A');

$semId = sem_get($id);

sem_acquire($semId);

$data = file_get_contents(__DIR__.'/06050396.JPG', FILE_BINARY);

$shmId = shm_attach($id, strlen($data)+4096);
$var = 1;
 
if (shm_has_var($shmId, $var)) {
 $data = shm_get_var($shmId, $var);

 $filename = '/tmp/' . time();
 file_put_contents($filename, $data, FILE_BINARY);

 shm_remove($shmId);
} else {
 shm_put_var($shmId, $var, $data); 
}

sem_release($semId); 

Now you can use the md5sum command line utility to compare two files, the original and the saved file. Or, you can open the file in image editor or whatever prefer to compare the images.

With this we are done with shared memory and semaphores. As your homework I want to ask you to write code that a demon will use semaphores to access shared memory.

Conclusion

Exchanging data between the daemons is very simple. This article described two options for data exchange: message queues and shared memory.

Post a comment here if you have questions or comments about how to exchange data with daemon services in PHP.

The following is a sponsored blogpost by Cloudways

Developing an application is not the sole thing you should bank on. You must strive to find the best hosting solution to deploy that application also. The application’s speed is dependent on the hosting provider, that is why I always advise you to go for the best hosting solution to get the ultimate app performance.

Now a days, it is a big challenge to choose any web hosting, as each hosting has its own pros and cons which you must know, before considering it finally for the deployment. I don’t recommend shared hosting for PHP/Laravel based applications, because you always get lot of server hassles like downtime, hacking, 500 errors, lousy support and other problems that are part and parcel of shared hosting.

For PHP applications, you must focus on more technical aspects like caching, configs, databases, etc. because these are essential performance points for any vanilla or framework-based PHP application. Additionally, if the app focuses on user engagement (for instance, ecommerce store), the hosting solution should be robust enough to handle spikes in traffic.

Here, I would like to introduce Cloudways PHP server hosting to you which provides easy, developer and designer friendly managed hosting platform. With Cloudways, you don't need to focus on PHP hosting, but must focus on building your application. You can easily launch cloud servers on five providers including DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, AWS and GCE.

Cloudways ThunderStack

Being a developer, you must be familiar with the concept of stack - an arrangement of technologies that form the underlying hosting solution.

To provide a blazing fast speed and a glitch-free performance, Cloudways has built a PHP stack, known as ThunderStack. This stack consists of technologies that offer maximum uptime and page load speed to all PHP applications. Check out the following visual representation of ThunderStack and the constituent technologies:





As you can see, ThunderStack comprises of a mix of static and dynamic caches with two web servers, Nginx and Apache. This combination ensures the ultimate experience for the users and visitors of your application.

Frameworks and CMS

The strength and popularity of PHP lies in the variety of frameworks and CMS it offers to the developers. Realizing this diversity, Cloudways offers a hassle-free installation of major PHP frameworks including Symfony, Laravel, CakePHP, Zend, and Codeigniter. Similarly, popular CMS such as WordPress, Bolt, Craft, October, Couch, and Coaster CMS - you can install these with the 1-click option. The best part is that if you have a framework or CMS that is not on the list, you can easily install it through Composer.

1-Click PHP Server & Application Installation

Setting up a stack on an unmanaged VPS could take an entire day!

When you opt for Cloudways managed cloud hosting, the entire process of setting up the server, installation of core PHP files and then the setup of the required framework is over in a matter of minutes.

Just sign up at Cloudways, choose your desired cloud provider, and select the PHP stack application.





As you can see, your LAMP stack is ready for business in minutes.

Many PHP applications fail because essential services are either turned off or not set up properly. Cloudways offers a centralized location where you can view and set the status of all essential services such as:



* Apache
* Elasticsearch
* Memcached
* MySQL
* PHP-FPM
* Nginx
* New Relic
* Redis
* Varnish





Similarly, you can manage SMTP add-ons without any fuss.

Staging Environment

With Cloudways, you can test your web applications for possible bugs and errors before taking it live.

Using the staging feature, developers can first deploy their web sites on test domains where they can analyze the applications performance and potential problems. This helps site administrators to fix those issues timely and view the application performance in real-time.

A default sub domain comes pre-installed with the newly launched application, making it easy for the administrators to test the applications on those testing subdomains. Overall, it's a great feature which helps developers know about the possible errors that may arise during the live deployment.

Pre-Installed Composer & Git

PHP development requires working with external libraries and packages. Suppose you are working with Laravel and you need to install an external package. Since Composer has become the standard way of installing packages, it comes preinstalled on the Cloudways platform. Just launch the application and start using Composer in your project.

Similarly, if you are familiar with Git and maintain your project on GitHub or BitBucket, you don’t need to worry about Git installation. Git also comes pre-configured on Cloudways. You can start running commands right after application launch.

Cloudways MySQL Manager

When you work with databases in PHP, you need a database manager. On the Cloudways platform, you will get a custom-built MySQL manager, in which you can perform all the tasks of a typical DB manager.




However, if you wish to install and use another database manager like PHPMyAdmin, you can install it by following this simple guide on installing PHPMyadmin.

Server & Application Level SSH

If you use Linux, you typically use SSH for accessing the server(s) and individual applications. A third-party developer requires application and server level access as per the requirements of the client. Cloudways offers SSH access to fit the requirements of the client and users.

PHP-FPM, Varnish & Cron Settings

Cloudways provides custom UI panel to set and maintain PHP-FPM and Varnish settings. Although the default configuration is already in place, you can easily change all the settings to suit your own, particular development related requirements. In Varnish settings, you can define URL that you want to exclude from caching. You can also set permissions in this panel.




Cron job is a very commonly used component of PHP application development process. On Cloudways platform, you can easily set up Cron jobs in just a few clicks. Just declare the PHP script URL and the time when the script will run.

Cloudways API & Personal Assistant Bot

Cloudways provides an internal API that offers all important aspects of the server and application management. Through Cloudways API, you can easily develop, integrate, automate, and manage your servers and web apps on Cloudways Platform using the RESTful API. Check out some of the use cases developed using Cloudways API. You just need your API key and email for authentication of the HTTP calls on API Playground and custom applications.




Cloudways employs a smart assistant named CloudwaysBot to notify all users about server and application level issues. CloudwaysBot sends the notifications on pre-approved channels including email, Slack and popular task management tools such as Asana and Trello.

Run Your APIs on PHP Stack

Do you have your own API which you want to run on the PHP stack? No problem, because you can do that, too with Cloudways! You can also use REST API like Slim, Silex, Lumen, and others. You can use APIs to speed up performance and require fast servers with lots of resources. So, if you think that your API response time is getting slower due to the large number of requests, you can easily scale your server(s) with a click to address the situation.

Team Collaboration

When you work on a large number of applications with multiple developers, you need to assign them on any specific application. Cloudways provides an awesome feature of team collaboration through which you can assign developers to specific application and give access to them. You can use this tool to assign one developer to multiple applications. Through team feature, you can connect the team together and work on single platform. Access can be of different type; i.e. billing, support and console. You can either give the full access or a limited one by selecting the features in Team tab.

Final Words

Managed cloud hosting ensures that you are not bothered by any hosting or server related issues. For practical purposes, this means that developers can concentrate on writing awesome code without worrying about underlying infrastructure and hosting related issues. Do sign up and check out Cloudways for the best and the most cost-effective cloud hosting solution for your next PHP project!