In early 2021, Symfony created a "Runtime component". This component may look complex, weird and full of hacks but it is a game changer for how we run PHP applications.

With the Runtime component, we can look at each application as a "black box". A box that has no connection to globals like $_SERVER or $_GET. To run the application you need (you guessed it) a Runtime. It is a class that looks at the black box to figure out what input it requires and handles the output.

Consider this small application that returns an UUID.

namespace Acme;

class Application
{
    public function run() {
        return Uuid::uuid4()->toString();
    }
}

To use this application with the Runtime component. We need our front-controller to return a callable that will create the application.

// index.php

return function() {
    return new Acme\Application();
}

If you want to use this application in a CLI environment, you need a Runtime that knows how to run an Acme\Application object and print the output on CLI. If you want to use it with Nginx/PHP-FPM then you need another Runtime that converts the application's output to a HTTP response.

Since your application is not connected to the global state, it is very portable. It is easy to create a Runtime to run the application with Bref, Swoole or ReactPHP without making any change to the application itself.

Since most modern PHP application is based on Symfony's HttpKernel, PSR-7 or PSR-15 we don't need too many different runtimes. This organization holds many PHP packages with runtimes for the most popular environments. It is not "the source of all runtimes", but rather a temporary place where runtimes can live before they move in to Bref/Swoole/RoadRunner etc.

All runtimes have hard dependencies to make installation easier. Everything should "just work".

Run your application on AWS Lambda with Bref.

• https://github.com/php-runtime/bref

Event-driven, non-blocking I/O with ReactPHP.

• https://github.com/php-runtime/reactphp

Spin up multiple PHP processes with Golang using RoadRunner.

• https://github.com/php-runtime/roadrunner-nyholm
• https://github.com/php-runtime/roadrunner-symfony-nyholm

Build high-performance, scalable, concurrent HTTP services with Swoole.

• https://github.com/php-runtime/swoole

These runtimes are for PHP-FPM and the more traditional web servers one might use for local development.

A runtime for Laravel and Artisan.

• https://github.com/php-runtime/laravel

Use the popular PSR architecture.

• https://github.com/php-runtime/psr-laminas
• https://github.com/php-runtime/psr-nyholm-laminas

The runtime for Symfony is included in the runtime component.

• https://github.com/symfony/runtime

Contributions are always welcomed. Send you PR or open an issue here: https://github.com/php-runtime/runtime