Deploying a PHP application is, as with any runtime, a breeze. It can be done from the Console, but also via the API or Clever Tools with a single command:
clever create -t php
PHP on Clever Cloud: full-featured, simple, straightforward
Add an index.php file to display the PHP configuration in a local git repository, and you won’t need to do anything else to deploy. You prefer PHP 8.3 to 8.4? No problem, just configure an environment variable:
echo "<?php phpinfo();" > index.php
git init
git add index.php
git commit -m "Initial commit"
clever env set CC_PHP_VERSION 8.3
clever deployThis will launch an application with PHP and Apache automatically configured, dependencies installed via Composer during the build phase, dozens of active or activatable extensions, the Symfony CLI, session management (which can be easily moved to Redis or Materia KV), the ability to enable Varnish caching just by adding a file to your repository, simplified configuration via an .ini or .htaccess file, and more.
Everything is detailed in our documentation (open source, feel free to contribute).
Redefining the user experience with FrankenPHP
But just like PHP, this runtime was getting old and needed to be overhauled. When we launched an in-depth review of our image management, creation process and the implementation of an entire automation and testing stack, we faced a dilemma: PHP is used by thousands of customers/applications in production, with PHP 5.x, 7.x and 8.x being managed up to the most recent versions. If we update our runtimes on a weekly basis, profound changes can quickly have major impacts that are difficult to anticipate. This limits our iteration speed and our innovation capacity.
So we set out to rethink things from scratch, with a brand new PHP experience on Clever Cloud that would gradually benefit our ‘Legacy’ deployment. FrankenPHP was the ideal candidate for this.
We discovered it at the end of 2023 and began testing its use within Clever Cloud. The project, which consists of combining an embedded PHP, a modern and easy-to-configure web server such as Caddy with a C ‘glue’, was gaining traction. Above all, it was developed by Kévin Dunglas from the Les Tilleuls cooperative, ‘ mates’ with whom we already had many friends and customers in common.
We therefore planned to integrate FrankenPHP gradually. First, to meet the needs of our first customers who requested it in early 2024, we posted a few ready-to-use examples on our GitHub account and provided some support for its deployment in Docker applications.
More importantly, this was the first of our new runtimes, launched at the beginning of the year. It was a winning bet, since a little over a year later, FrankenPHP became a project managed within the PHP Foundation. We now support several clients and partners in their use of FrankenPHP, including Les Tilleuls, who say: ‘We are delighted to join forces with Clever Cloud and FrankenPHP to push the boundaries of performance, simplify deployment and guarantee uncompromising reliability and security.’
Compared to traditional PHP runtime, our offering benefits from simpler but also more comprehensive deployment tools, which ultimately allow you to take any PHP project and deploy it in a Clever Cloud application with FrankenPHP without having to configure anything, not even a Dockerfile.
Deploy FrankenPHP as easy as 1-2-3 with Clever Cloud
Returning to our earlier example, we can delete the application we created and create a new one using the FrankenPHP runtime. It will be both similar and very different:
clever delete
clever create -t frankenphp
clever deploySimilar because you benefit from the same simplicity and tools offered by Clever Cloud, with its logs, metrics and ease of configuration, which greatly contributes to the speed gains provided by our platform.
All this with unparalleled versatility, since you can deploy in our infrastructure, but also in that of our partners Ionos, OVHcloud, and Scaleway, in France and Europe or even on other continents. This can be managed with a single click in our Console, as can the activation of horizontal, vertical, or automatic scalability.
Different because we natively support FrankenPHP’s Worker mode, its use for launching scripts (e.g. for Clever Tasks), listening port management, Caddyfile configuration, etc. Of course, we make it easy to use Redis or Materia KV, integrate dozens of extensions, Symfony CLI, use a local version of Composer or even Varnish.
But we do it in a new way, for example with the integration of Request Flow, which allows you to combine Varnish with tools such as Redirection.io or the reverse proxy of your choice, which also made its debut on these runtimes. If you simply want to test several of these features, we have a GitHub repository for that.
Come and meet us to find out more
We will be on Thursday 17 September and Friday 18 September at the API Platform Conference, where we will present the work we have been doing over the last few months on our images and FrankenPHP, as well as our plans for future developments and new features.
We will also be present at the PHP Forum on 9 and 10 October alongside AFUP, which we sponsor throughout the year, to celebrate the association’s 25th anniversary and 30 years of PHP.
In the meantime, feel free to try FrankenPHP on Clever Cloud and share your ideas, opinions and needs with us. We have an open discussion on this topic within our GitHub community.