The Pop PHP Framework a free and open sourcePHPWeb framework that was created by Nick Sagona. It is distributed under the BSD License and hosted on GitHub. The framework is intended to be utilized for rapid application development, with an emphasis on web applications.
History
Development on the Pop PHP Framework was officially begun by Nick Sagona in late 2011, when he refactored a set of older library components into the first version of Pop PHP, which was released on March 19, 2012. The focus was for Pop PHP to become a more modern, MVC-style web framework with a set of supporting components to assist in building web applications.
After PHP 5.4 was released, Pop PHP 2 was refactored to take advantage of the new features available in PHP 5.4, as well as fully leveraging Composer by breaking out almost all of the components into separate repositories on GitHub. Pop PHP 2 was first released on July 12, 2015.
Pop PHP 3 was a slight refactor of the existing framework, while adding a handful of new components and deprecating a few older components. Version 3 supports PHP 7 and 5.6 and was released on July 9, 2016. The last version, 3.8.0, was released on August 25, 2018. The EOL version 3.8.9 was released on February 24, 2020.
Pop PHP 4 was a refactor of the existing framework that upgraded and improved existing components and focused on leveraging newly available features in PHP 7.4 and 8.0.
Pop PHP 5 was another major refactor of the framework, adding a number of new features and upgrades and focusing on the new features available in PHP 8.1+. The current version, 5.4.0, supports PHP 8.1+ and was released on September 10, 2024.
The framework has been included on a number of "best of" lists for new and up-and-coming PHP Frameworks.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
The Pop PHP Framework is the framework on which the open source Phire CMS project was built.[9][10]
Release history
Version 5.4.0 is the current version that is in active development. Versions 4.8.0 and earlier have reached end of life and are no longer supported. A current changelog is maintained for a recent list of changes and how they impact continued development with Pop PHP.[11]
While the initial development of the Pop PHP Framework was focused on building web applications, since version 3, Pop PHP fully supports console-based applications to be used on the CLI as well. Pop PHP incorporates current standards, trends and patterns in software development in an attempt to build an ecosystem that is familiar to developers. The framework is heavily unit-tested using PHPUnit and runs through the GitHub Actions workflow platform to ensure the builds of the individual framework components are passing.[13]
Pop PHP 5.4.0 is currently written for and supports PHP 8.1+, and no longer supports PHP <=7.4.
The Pop PHP Framework project welcomes community involvement and contribution via the current available channels.[14]
Features
The base foundation of Pop PHP is the initial set of core components that make up the application stack:
The Application Object
The Router
The Service Locator
The Event Manager
The Module Manager
The Base Controller Class
Additionally, there are a number of other components that are available for use in building an application.[15] Some of the commonly used components and what they include are:
Database Abstraction (popphp/pop-db)
Database adapters
Active record
Query builder
SQL migration
HTTP Abstraction (popphp/pop-http)
HTTP client & server classes
Promises
Headers & Auth
Request & response handlers
File uploads
HTML Form Generation (popphp/pop-form)
Simple form configuration & rendering
HTML form validation
PDF Generation (popphp/pop-pdf)
PDF creation & editing
Job Queue (popphp/pop-queue)
Job queue management & scheduler
Mail (popphp/pop-mail)
Support for popular mail APIs
SMTP support
Mail queues
IMAP/POP client
Storage (popphp/pop-storage)
Support for popular cloud-based storage APIs
Auditing (popphp/pop-audit)
Caching (popphp/pop-cache)
Debugging (popphp/pop-debug)
Logging (popphp/pop-log)
Image Manipulation (popphp/pop-image)
Views (popphp/pop-view)
Sessions (popphp/pop-session)
Console (popphp/pop-console)
Cookies (popphp/pop-cookie)
Popcorn
Popcorn is a standalone web-based component that serves as a REST-based micro-framework layer to allow developers to quickly build REST-based web applications and APIs. With it, a developer can enforce routes by request methods and direct HTTP requests accordingly.[16][17][18]
Kettle
Kettle is a CLI-based helper script available since version 4.0.1. It allows the user to quickly scaffold application files and folders together as well as manage databases and migrations.[19]
