23 PHP Developers to Follow Online

NOTE: This is an update to a post originally published in May 2014. We encourage and welcome suggestions from our readers about whom to include on this list! Please send your ideas to @NewRelic on Twitter, using hashtag #phpexperts.

PHP is an incredibly powerful and versatile scripting language. PHP is also an essential skill for most web developers: it's used today by four out of five websites and by more than half of the world's top 1,000 sites. As a result, the PHP community\ is large, active, and vibrant, and it's a magnet for smart developers and technologists.

The following list—in alphabetical order—includes some of the most prominent PHP source and framework committers, project leaders, teachers, visionaries, and entrepreneurs. Follow their blogs, Twitter feeds, and other communication channels to get a front-row view of what matters to the community today, where it wants to go, and how you might be able to get involved.

Be sure to check back occasionally: We plan to update this list in response to reader feedback and suggestions.

Rob Allen

Owner of Nineteen Feet, a UK-based Zend Framework consultancy. Current Zend Framework Education Advisory Board member, and a prolific contributor to Zend Framework as well as other PHP-related projects; author of Zend Framework in Action (2009). A regular speaker and presenter at PHP conferences and other public events.

Blog: http://akrabat.com/

Twitter: @akrabat

GitHub: https://github.com/akrabat

Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/users/23060/rob-allen

Sebastian Bergmann

Co-founder and Principal Consultant of The PHP Consulting Company, and a pioneer in PHP quality assurance. Creator of PHPUnit, an industry-leading testing tool integrated with most modern PHP frameworks and CMS platforms; author of nine English- and German-language books on PHP-related topics.

Website: http://sebastian-bergmann.de/

Twitter: @s_bergmann

GitHub: https://github.com/sebastianbergmann

Jordi Boggiano

Co-founder at Nelmio, a Switzerland-based web application development firm. Co-author of Composer, a widely used application-level package manager for PHP. Symfony2 core team member; lead developer for the Monolog PHP logger; and a frequent speaker and presenter at industry events.

Blog: http://seld.be/

Twitter: @seldaek

GitHub: https://github.com/Seldaek

Dries Buytaert

Co-founder and CTO of Acquia, an open source company that leverages the Drupal CMS. Creator and project lead for Drupal, as well as a co-founder and board member of the Drupal Association.

Blog: http://buytaert.net/

Twitter: @Dries

Angie Byron

Senior Director of Product Management and Community Development at Acquia. Current Drupal core co-maintainer and past Drupal Association board member; also Development Manager for Drupal Spark, a Drupal distribution focused on user experience enhancements. Co-author of Using Drupal, 3rd Edition (2016).

Blog: http://www.webchick.net/

Twitter: @webchick

Anthony Ferrara

CTO at enterprise language coaching firm Lingo Live, and a Zend-certified engineer with expertise in security, performance, and object-oriented programming. Developed the new, more secure password API in PHP 5.5; writes extensively about security in the PHP ecosystem and is a prolific creator of instructional videos and other resources for PHP developers.

Blog: http://blog.ircmaxell.com/

Twitter: @ircmaxwell

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+AnthonyFerrara/posts

GitHub: https://github.com/ircmaxell

Ed Finkler

Member of the Fictive Kin software engineering and design collective, and a co-host of the Development Hell podcast. Creator of multiple projects in the PHP ecosystem, including PhpSecInfo auditing tool, the Inspekt input filtering library, and the FUnit testing framework. Also the creator of Open Sourcing Mental Illness, a campaign to raise awareness of mental health issues in the developer community.

Blog: http://funkatron.com/

Twitter: @funkatron

Google+: https://plus.google.com/104166226221361877073/posts

GitHub: https://github.com/funkatron

Sara Golemon

Platforms Engineer at MongoDB. Core Developer and Release Manager for PHP 7.2. Core Committee Member for the PHP Framework Interoperability Group, helping to develop PHP standards recommendations. Also created the first formal PHP Language Specification; contributed to multiple areas of the PHP core runtime; authored Extending and Embedding PHP (2014, with online updates), a highly regarded guide to writing extensions for PHP in C/C++.

Blog: http://blog.golemon.com

Twitter: @SaraMG

GitHub: https://github.com/sgolemon

Andi Gutmans

Co-founder and CEO of Zend Technologies (acquired by Rogue Wave Software in 2015). Co-creator of PHP 3 and of the Zend Engine, the core of PHP 4; directed Zend's development of the PHP 5 and PHP 7 releases. Co-author of PHP5 Power Programming (2004); emeritus member of The Apache Software Foundation. Currently General Manager at Amazon Web Services.

Blog: http://blog.zend.com/author/andi/

Twitter: @andigutmans

Emma Jane Hogbin

Technical Project Manager for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Prominent as a long-time Drupal developer, author, educator, and community advocate. Co-author of Front End Drupal (2009) and author of Drupal User’s Guide (2011).

Website: http://emmajane.net/index.html

Twitter: @emmajanehw

GitHub: https://github.com/emmajane

Alena Holligan

PHP teacher at Treehouse, Inc., and an independent web and application developer. President of the Cascadia PHP conference. Other interests include the phpMyDirectory web portal application, and leading workshops focused on PHP development concepts.

Twitter: @alenaholligan

GitHub: https://github.com/sketchings

Website: http://sketchings.com/

Rasmus Lerdorf

Creator and Founder of the PHP project in 1994. Author of the first two PHP versions; a prominent contributor to all subsequent PHP releases and to ongoing PHP development, and a noted speaker at PHP and open source events. Currently a Distinguished Engineer at Etsy.

Blog: http://toys.lerdorf.com/

Twitter: @rasmus

GitHub: https://github.com/rlerdorf

Tobias Nyholm

CTO at Happyr.com, an employee recruiting platform provider. Currently a member of the Symfony core team and of the Symfony CARE team, which is focused on creating a more diverse and welcoming Symfony developer community. Also a board member at Symfony Sweden; a key contributor to the Symfony New Relic bundle; and a contributor to the PHP-cache, HTTPlug, Guzzle, PHP-Geocoder, and PHP-Translation projects.

Website: http://tnyholm.se/

Twitter: @tobiasnyholm

GitHub: https://github.com/Nyholm

Matthew Weier O’Phinney

Principal Engineer at Zend. Current Project Lead for Zend Framework, in addition to Apigility (an API builder written in PHP), and Expressive (a PHP middleware microframework). A Zend-certified engineer, and member of the Zend Framework Education Advisory Board, writer, and noted speaker at PHP events.

Blog: https://mwop.net/blog/

Twitter: @mwop

GitHub: https://github.com/weierophinney

Taylor Otwell

Creator of Laravel, a popular open-source PHP web framework built using Symfony components. Also the creator of several other products within the Laravel ecosystem, including Spark (standard components for rapid application development using Larvel), Forge (automated server deployment and configuration), and Envoyer (a comprehensive application deployment system).

Blog: http://taylorotwell.com/

Twitter: @taylorotwell

GitHub: https://github.com/taylorotwell

Nikita Popov

A student in computer science and physics at the Technical University of Berlin who is already a prolific contributor and creator within the PHP ecosystem. Projects include PHP-Parser (a PHP parser written in PHP!) and FastRoute (a fast request router for PHP), in addition to contributions to various PHP 7.x and 5.x releases.

Blog: http://nikic.github.io/

Twitter: @nikita_ppv

GitHub: https://github.com/nikic

Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/users/385378/nikic

Fabien Potencier

Co-founder and CEO of SensioLabs, a business solution provider for PHP and Symfony projects. Creator and current Project Lead for the Symfony open source PHP Framework project; and owner and CEO of Symfony (an open source business based on the Symfony project). Also owner and CEO of Blackfire.io, a PHP application performance testing firm.

Blog: http://fabien.potencier.org

Twitter: @fabpot

GitHub: https://github.com/fabpot

Derick Rethans

PHP Engineer and Evangelist at MongoDB. Author of Xdebug, a widely used PHP debugging tool. Author of PHP/Architect's Guide to Date and Time Programming (2009), and co-author of PHP 5 Power Programming.

Blog: http://derickrethans.nl

Twitter: @derickr

GitHub: https://github.com/derickr

Lukas Smith

Developer and part of the management team at Liip, a Swiss software firm. A key developer for Symfony, and an expert in relational databases within the PHP ecosystem. Previously the co-manager for the PHP 5.3 release.

Blog: http://pooteeweet.org/

Twitter: @lsmith

GitHub: https://github.com/lsmith77

Margaret Staples

Developer Evangelist at Twilio, a cloud communications platform provider, whose PHP-related interests include Symfony and Laravel. A well known speaker on the PHP community conference circuit.

Blog: https://www.twilio.com/blog/author/mstaples

Twitter: @dead_lugosi

GitHub: https://github.com/mstaples

Juan Treminio

Senior Application Engineer with Medidata Solutions, a life-sciences technology provider. Creator of PuPHPet, a GUI configurator for the Vagrant automation tool designed to simplify the task of provisioning and maintaining virtual environments.

Blog: https://jtreminio.com/

Twitter: @juantreminio

GitHub: https://github.com/jtreminio

Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/users/446766/juan-treminio

Jonathan Wage

CTO of Marketplaces at OpenSky.com. A frequent contributor to Doctrine, a set of PHP libraries related to database storage and object mapping, and to Symfony.

Blog: https://jwage.com/blog/

Twitter: @jwage

GitHub: https://github.com/jwage

David Walsh

Senior Software Engineer and Evangelist for Mozilla; core developer for the MooTools Javascript Framework and a creator of numerous MooTools plugins. Noted for creating an extensive set of high-quality PHP tutorials; publishing a frequently updated blog on PHP and related technology topics; hosting the Script & Style podcast; and for his PHP-related demos and feature articles.

Blog: http://davidwalsh.name/

Twitter: @davidwalshblog

GitHub: https://github.com/darkwing

Bonus link: @official_php, the official Twitter account for php.net. Follow it for tips, tricks, new releases, bug fixes, and all the latest information about PHP.