Hire expert PHP developers

Add a senior PHP engineer who can read the code you already have, move it safely onto PHP 8.x, and ship new features in Symfony, Laravel or plain framework-free PHP.

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Projects delivered: 50+
Average rating: 4.8/5
Response time: 24h

Hire a PHP developer

Tell us what you're building. We'll send a plan and a quote within 24 hours — no spam.

A cleaner way to hire PHP developers

Hire PHP developers from Krapton to maintain, modernize and extend the PHP applications your business already runs, or to build new services on current PHP 8.x. Much of the web still runs on PHP, and a large share of that code predates...

Legacy code without the rewrite
Big-bang rewrites of working PHP systems often stall halfway. Our developers wrap the existing behavior in characterization tests, extract services behind interfaces, and replace modules one route at a time using the strangler fig pattern, so the business keeps running on code that improves every sprint.
Fluent in modern PHP
Our engineers write idiomatic PHP 8: enums instead of class constants, readonly value objects, constructor promotion, match expressions and, from PHP 8.4, property hooks. Typed code like this lets PHPStan or Psalm catch mistakes during review rather than in production error logs.
Framework-agnostic, not Laravel-only
Plenty of PHP lives in Symfony, Laminas, CodeIgniter, Yii or a homegrown framework. The engineers we place read PSR-based code and bespoke routers alike, follow the conventions already in the repository, and introduce Composer autoloading where include and require_once chains still hold everything together.
Security habits built in
PHP applications are attacked through the same few doors: SQL built by string concatenation, unescaped output, unserialize() on user input, weak session handling and outdated Composer packages. Our engineers use PDO prepared statements, context-aware escaping, password_hash() with Argon2id or bcrypt, and composer audit in CI.

Why PHP?

What makes PHP the right choice for modern engineering teams.

Server-side scripting
PHP is a server-side scripting language, allowing the execution of code on the server before delivering the result to the client browser.
Cross-platform compatibility
PHP is platform-independent and can run on various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and Unix.
Open source
PHP is open-source software, providing developers with the flexibility to modify and customize the language according to their needs.
Extensive database support
PHP supports a wide range of databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and more, facilitating seamless database integration in web applications.
Community support
PHP has a large and active community of developers, contributing to the language's growth, providing support, and sharing resources.
Frameworks for rapid development
PHP has popular frameworks like Laravel, Symfony, and CodeIgniter, which offer pre-built modules and tools for faster and efficient web development.
Embedding in HTML
PHP code can be embedded directly into HTML, making it easy to mix dynamic content with static content in web pages.
Security features
PHP includes built-in security features like data encryption, authentication mechanisms, and input validation to enhance web application security.
Scalability
PHP is scalable and suitable for both small websites and large-scale enterprise applications.
Server-side caching
PHP supports server-side caching mechanisms, improving the performance of web applications by reducing the load on servers.

What you can build with PHP

Symfony API backends
REST and GraphQL APIs on Symfony with API Platform or plain controllers, Messenger for asynchronous work, Doctrine migrations under version control, and OpenAPI documentation generated from the code so frontend and mobile teams stay in sync.
Modernized legacy applications
An older PHP 5 or 7 application moved onto a supported PHP 8 release, with Composer dependencies updated, deprecated functions removed, and a test suite that shows the upgrade did not change behavior.
CMS plugins and modules
Custom WordPress plugins, Drupal modules and Magento extensions written against each platform’s extension points, with coding standards, escaping rules and update paths that keep them working across core releases.
Payment gateway integrations
Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay or Adyen integrations in PHP with webhook signature verification, idempotency keys on retries, and reconciliation jobs that compare gateway records with your own orders table.
Long-running PHP services
Queue consumers, WebSocket servers and high-throughput HTTP workers on FrankenPHP worker mode, RoadRunner or Swoole, written with care for memory growth and state that must reset between requests.
Internal tools and portals
Back-office admin panels, B2B customer portals and reporting screens on top of an existing MySQL or PostgreSQL schema, reusing the business rules already in your PHP code instead of duplicating them elsewhere.

Upgrading legacy PHP without breaking production

Much of the PHP work that matters to a business is not greenfield. It is an application that has earned revenue for years, runs on a PHP version that stopped receiving security patches, and has too few tests for anyone to change it with confidence. Krapton’s PHP engineers treat the upgrade as an engineering project with its own safety net. They first get the application running locally in Docker with the production PHP version and extensions, then write characterization tests that record what key pages and endpoints return today. PHPStan runs with a baseline so new code meets a stricter bar while old errors are tracked rather than ignored. Rector then applies upgrade rule sets one target version at a time, and each step lands as a small, reviewable pull request instead of one enormous diff.

The breaking changes are predictable, which is why the work can be planned. Moving from PHP 7 to 8 surfaces stricter comparisons between strings and numbers, internal functions that throw TypeError or ValueError where they once warned and returned null or false, removed functions such as each() and create_function(), and dynamic properties deprecated from PHP 8.2. Extensions matter too: code still calling the old mysql_* functions needs a PDO or mysqli layer first, because that extension disappeared in PHP 7.0. Deployment follows the same caution. The new runtime goes to one server or container behind the load balancer, error rates and logs are compared against the old pool, and traffic shifts only when the numbers match. Rolling back is a routing change, not an emergency.

PHP in action

<?php
// DB configuration
$host = 'localhost';
$db   = 'your_database';
$user = 'your_username';
$pass = 'your_password';
$charset = 'utf8mb4';

// DSN (Data Source Name)
$dsn = "mysql:host=$host;dbname=$db;charset=$charset";
$options = [
    PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE            => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,
    PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE => PDO::FETCH_ASSOC,
    PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES   => false,
];

try {
    $pdo = new PDO($dsn, $user, $pass, $options);
} catch (PDOException $e) {
    throw new PDOException($e->getMessage(), (int)$e->getCode());
}

// Define a class
class FileManager {
    public function readFile($filename) {
        return file_get_contents($filename);
    }

    public function writeFile($filename, $content) {
        file_put_contents($filename, $content);
    }
}

// Create an instance of the class
$fileManager = new FileManager();

// Process form data and interact with DB and file
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST") {
    // Assuming form fields are 'username' and 'content'
    $username = $_POST['username'];
    $content = $_POST['content'];

    // Write content to a file
    $fileManager->writeFile("user_data.txt", $content);

    // Insert data into database
    $stmt = $pdo->prepare('INSERT INTO users (username, content) VALUES (?, ?)');
    $stmt->execute([$username, $content]);

    echo "Data saved successfully!";
}

?>

What our PHP developers know

Every Krapton developer is vetted with real production experience in PHP across multiple industry domains.

Proficiency in PHPExpertise in building server-side applications and web services using PHP, with a strong understanding of PHP principles and best practices.
Database managementProficient in working with databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB, for efficient data storage and retrieval.
PHP frameworksExperience with popular PHP frameworks such as Laravel, Symfony, and CodeIgniter for rapid and organized web development.
Web securityKnowledge of security best practices in web development, including data encryption, secure authentication, and protection against common security vulnerabilities.
RESTful API developmentBuilding and consuming RESTful APIs to enable communication between different components of a web application.
Front-end technologiesUnderstanding of front-end technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to collaborate effectively with front-end developers.
Version controlProficient in using version control systems like Git for collaborative development and codebase management.
Debugging and optimizationStrong skills in debugging and optimizing PHP code for performance improvements and efficient resource utilization.
Unit testingExperience in writing unit tests for PHP code using testing frameworks like PHPUnit to ensure code quality and reliability.
Command-line interface (CLI)Familiarity with using the command line for various tasks, including running scripts, interacting with databases, and managing server configurations.

What our PHP developers go deep on

Static analysis and automated refactoring
PHPStan or Psalm raised one level at a time with a baseline file for existing errors, Rector for version and framework upgrades, and PHP-CS-Fixer or PHP_CodeSniffer enforcing PER coding style in CI.
Testing with PHPUnit and pest
Characterization tests that pin down legacy behavior before refactoring, unit tests for domain logic, database tests in transactions, and mutation testing with Infection to show whether the suite catches real bugs.
Runtime tuning: OPcache and PHP-FPM
Sizing pm.max_children from measured memory per worker, OPcache memory and validate_timestamps settings for production, preloading where it helps, and knowing when the JIT matters, which for typical I/O-bound web requests is rarely.
Symfony components and doctrine
Dependency injection with autowiring, Messenger transports for async jobs, Doctrine ORM mappings and migrations, the Security component for voters and firewalls, and using individual components inside non-Symfony codebases.
Logging, tracing and error tracking
Structured logging through Monolog, error tracking with Sentry, APM traces from OpenTelemetry, New Relic or Datadog, and slow-log analysis for PHP-FPM, so production issues come with a stack trace instead of a guess.
Composer and dependency hygiene
Committed composer.lock files, platform config matching production PHP, replacing abandoned packages flagged by Composer, private package repositories, and Renovate or Dependabot pull requests reviewed with changelogs rather than merged blind.

Common PHP projects we deliver

Upgrading an end-of-life PHP version
PHP 7.x and 8.0 no longer receive security fixes. A typical upgrade runs Rector rule sets per target version, fixes what PHPStan reports, replaces abandoned Composer packages, and rolls out behind a canary server so regressions surface on a small slice of traffic.
Taming a sprawling script-based PHP monolith
When dozens of page scripts each include their own database code and every change breaks something unrelated, the developer introduces a front controller, a dependency injection container and module boundaries, then moves features behind them one at a time. Microservices come later, if ever.
Finding why PHP pages are slow
Profiling with Blackfire or Tideways usually points to N+1 queries, missing indexes, or work that belongs in a queue. The fixes include OPcache and preloading settings, right-sized PHP-FPM pools, Redis caching with clear invalidation, and moving email and PDF generation to background workers.
Inheriting a PHP system nobody documented
When the only person who understood the system has left, the work starts with a reproducible local environment in Docker, a map of entry points and cron jobs, documented credentials and deploy steps, and tests around payment and order flows.

PHP solutions by industry

Ecommerce
Magento, WooCommerce and custom carts where checkout, tax and inventory logic sits in PHP and every change needs testing against realistic order data before release.
Publishing and media
WordPress and Drupal sites with heavy editorial workflows, custom content types, paywalls and caching layers that must stay fast during traffic spikes from news cycles.
Education
Moodle, the open-source learning platform written in PHP, plus custom course portals, assessment engines and integrations with student information systems and single sign-on.
SaaS and B2B
Subscription products built on PHP years ago that now need multi-tenant data isolation, audit logs, SSO via SAML or OIDC, and APIs for enterprise customers.

PHP vs Node.js

PHP and Node.js both serve web backends well, but they run code differently. Classic PHP starts every request with a clean slate under PHP-FPM, which limits memory leaks and makes horizontal scaling simple. Node.js keeps one long-lived process with an event loop, which suits WebSockets and streaming. Team skills and existing code usually decide more than raw speed.

PHP vs Node.js
Dimension	PHP	Node.js
Request model	Shared-nothing; each request starts fresh under PHP-FPM	One long-lived process; state persists between requests
Concurrency	Worker processes; async via Fibers, Swoole or ReactPHP	Non-blocking event loop with native async I/O
Realtime	Needs a separate WebSocket process, such as Swoole	WebSockets and streaming fit the runtime natively
CMS ecosystem	WordPress, Drupal, Magento and Moodle all run on PHP	Strapi, Payload and Ghost; fewer full commerce suites
Type safety	Native type declarations plus PHPStan or Psalm	TypeScript on top; types erased at runtime
Best fit	Content sites, commerce, CRUD-heavy business apps	Realtime apps, streaming APIs, shared JavaScript teams

How to hire PHP developers in 5 steps

A transparent, low-risk process — from first call to onboarded engineer in about two business days.

01Day 0
Share your brief
Tell us the stack, scope, seniority and the timezone overlap you need on a free 30-minute discovery call. No obligation, no sales pitch.
02Within 24 hours
Review matched profiles
We shortlist 2–3 pre-vetted PHP engineers from our in-house bench, with CVs and directly relevant work — usually within one business day.
03Days 1–2
Interview & test
Interview each developer yourself, run a paid trial task, or do a live pairing session. You decide who joins — we never push a profile.
04Within 2 days
Onboard securely
Sign a free NDA, then plug the developer into your Jira, repository and Slack. Engagements are month-to-month with no lock-in.
05Ongoing
Scale or replace
Scale the team up or down month by month as the roadmap changes. If the fit is not right, you get a free replacement within the first 30 days.

Other backend technologies we work with at Krapton.

Three ways to hire PHP developers

Pick the engagement that matches how you actually work. No multi-year contracts — scale up or down month by month.

Dedicated developer
Most popular
Full-time PHP engineer who reports only to you. Best for ongoing products, long-term roadmaps and teams that need a core hire without the HR overhead.
- 40 hours / week
- Your Jira, your repo
- Month-to-month
Hourly / time & materials
Pay only for billable hours. Ideal for research spikes, code audits, or variable-load PHP work where scope is still being discovered.
- Weekly timesheets
- Slack-first comms
- No minimum commit
Fixed-price milestones
Scoped delivery with clear milestones and acceptance criteria. Best for well-defined PHP builds like an MVP, a migration or a specific module.
- Scope locked upfront
- Milestone acceptance
- Predictable budget

Compare ways to hire PHP developers

Pick the model that matches how you work. Switch between them as your PHP project evolves — no multi-year contracts.

Compare ways to hire PHP developers
Engagement	Dedicated developer (popular)	Hourly / time & materials	Fixed-price milestones
Best for	Ongoing products & long-term roadmaps	Exploratory or variable-load work	Well-scoped MVPs, modules & migrations
Billing	Monthly, full-time (~160 hrs)	Per billable hour	Per accepted milestone
Commitment	Month-to-month, no lock-in	No minimum commitment	Scope locked up front
Flexibility	Scale up or down monthly	Highest — pay for what you use	Lowest — defined deliverables
You manage	Day-to-day in your tools	Weekly priorities	Acceptance criteria only
Reporting	Daily standups	Weekly timesheets	Milestone demos

Hire PHP developers from anywhere

Our New Delhi team partners with founders and engineering leaders across eight key markets, with enough daily timezone overlap to feel in-house.

Hire PHP developers in India
Full working-day overlap
Krapton is an on-shore PHP studio in New Delhi. Hire PHP developers in India and get senior, full-time engineers at roughly 50–70% of US/UK rates — with English-fluent communication and IST working hours.
Hire PHP developers in USA
4–6 hours of daily overlap — your morning, our evening
Hire dedicated PHP developers for your USA team without the local price tag. US companies work with our vetted, full-time PHP engineers at 50–70% lower cost than local contractors, with enough daily overlap for live standups, pairing and code review.
Hire PHP developers in UK
Overlap across your whole morning (our afternoon)
Hire dedicated PHP developers for your UK team without the local price tag. UK companies work with our vetted, full-time PHP engineers at 50–70% lower cost than local contractors, with enough daily overlap for live standups, pairing and code review.
Hire PHP developers in Canada
4–6 hours of daily overlap with ET and PT
Hire dedicated PHP developers for your Canada team without the local price tag. Canada companies work with our vetted, full-time PHP engineers at 50–70% lower cost than local contractors, with enough daily overlap for live standups, pairing and code review.
Hire PHP developers in Australia
Strong overlap — our morning is your afternoon
Hire dedicated PHP developers for your Australia team without the local price tag. Australia companies work with our vetted, full-time PHP engineers at 50–70% lower cost than local contractors, with enough daily overlap for live standups, pairing and code review.
Hire PHP developers in UAE
Near-complete overlap — just 90 minutes apart
Hire dedicated PHP developers for your UAE team without the local price tag. UAE companies work with our vetted, full-time PHP engineers at 50–70% lower cost than local contractors, with enough daily overlap for live standups, pairing and code review.
Hire PHP developers in Germany
Overlap through your morning and our afternoon (DACH)
Hire dedicated PHP developers for your Germany team without the local price tag. Germany companies work with our vetted, full-time PHP engineers at 50–70% lower cost than local contractors, with enough daily overlap for live standups, pairing and code review.
Hire PHP developers in Singapore
Near-complete overlap — only 2.5 hours apart
Hire dedicated PHP developers for your Singapore team without the local price tag. Singapore companies work with our vetted, full-time PHP engineers at 50–70% lower cost than local contractors, with enough daily overlap for live standups, pairing and code review.

PHP developer rates

Hire dedicated PHP developers from Krapton's team in India. Rates below are blended hourly bands; dedicated developers are billed monthly with no lock-in.

Junior (1–3 yrs)
Feature work under senior review
$22–$28/hr
Mid-level (3–6 yrs)
Owns modules end-to-end
$28–$36/hr
Senior / lead (6+ yrs)
Architecture, reviews, mentoring
$36–$45/hr

Why teams hire PHP developers from Krapton

Projects delivered: 50+
In-house engineers: 60+
Average client rating: 4.8/5
On-time delivery: 98%

Vetted, full-time engineers
Every PHP developer is a full-time, in-house Krapton engineer — never a freelancer or subcontractor.
Ready in 24 hours
Shortlisted PHP CVs within a business day and an onboarded developer within two.
Clear hourly rates
Published hourly bands by seniority, billed monthly, with no lock-in.
Your IP, your repos
Full IP assignment, free NDA on request, and all code in your accounts from day one.
30-day replacement
Not the right fit? Free replacement within five business days in the first 30 days.
Real timezone overlap
4–6 hours of daily overlap with US, UK, EU, UAE and AU teams for live collaboration.

Most PHP engagements also benefit from these Krapton services. Browse full offerings on the services page.

Hire PHP developer

Free consultation · No commitment

Hiring PHP developers — answered

Practical answers to the questions CTOs and founders ask us most often before they hire.

How quickly can I hire a PHP developer from Krapton?

Within 24 hours of the initial call. We keep a bench of pre-vetted PHP engineers, so once you confirm the brief we line up two or three shortlisted CVs within a business day and can onboard the selected developer within two.

How much does it cost to hire a dedicated PHP developer from India?

Blended hourly rates for senior PHP engineers typically fall in the $22–$45 USD range depending on seniority and engagement length. Dedicated developers are billed monthly with no lock-in.

Are your PHP developers full-time employees or freelancers?

Every PHP developer you hire through Krapton is a full-time, in-house engineer — we never subcontract to freelancers or agencies. That means consistent code quality, signed NDAs, and a single point of accountability for your project.

Who owns the code and IP my PHP developers write?

You do — 100%. IP assignment and confidentiality are covered by the contract and a free NDA on request. All code lives in your repositories, on your infrastructure, under your accounts from day one.

What should I check before I hire PHP developers for a legacy codebase?

Check whether they can work safely in code they did not write. Ask a candidate how they would add tests to a function with database calls and globals, how they would plan an upgrade from PHP 7.4 to a current 8.x release, and what PHPStan or Rector would catch along the way. Good answers mention characterization tests, baselines, small pull requests and rollback plans. Framework trivia matters far less than this.

Is PHP still a sensible choice for a new backend, or should we use Node.js?

PHP is a sensible choice when your product is mostly request-and-response work: forms, dashboards, commerce, content and APIs over a relational database. Its shared-nothing model is easy to scale and hard to leak memory in. Node.js is the better fit when realtime connections or streaming are central, or when one JavaScript team owns both ends. For an existing PHP product, rewriting just to switch languages rarely pays back.

Can you migrate a PHP application to Symfony or Laravel without a full rewrite?

Yes, usually by running the old and new code side by side. A Symfony or Laravel front controller takes over routing, and any URL it does not yet handle falls through to the legacy scripts. Features move across one route at a time, sharing the same database and session, until the old entry points can be deleted. Users never see a cutover date, and each move can be reverted on its own.

Which PHP version should we be running in production?

Run a branch that still gets fixes from the PHP project, and schedule the next upgrade before its window closes. Under the current policy each release receives two years of active support followed by two years of security-only fixes, and PHP 8.0 and everything older is already end of life. Adopt the newest release once your framework, extensions and critical Composer packages declare support, which Composer’s platform checks will confirm.

Can PHP handle high traffic, or do we need another language?

Yes, PHP handles high traffic when the architecture around it is right. Because PHP-FPM workers share nothing, you scale by adding servers or containers behind a load balancer, with sessions in Redis rather than local files. The limits usually sit in the database and in work done inside the request, so caching, read replicas and queues matter more than the language. For long-lived connections, FrankenPHP or Swoole workers fill the gap.

Keep exploring

More ways to plan your PHP build and team with Krapton.

Ready to build with PHP?

Get a free 30-minute consultation with our PHP team. Clear roadmap, transparent pricing, no obligation.

Hire a developer Schedule a call

Free NDA on request
Response within 24 hours
Certified PHP developers
Flexible engagement models
US, UK, UAE & India clients served

Hire a PHP developer

A cleaner way to hire PHP developers

Legacy code without the rewrite

Fluent in modern PHP

Framework-agnostic, not Laravel-only

Security habits built in

Why PHP?

Server-side scripting

Cross-platform compatibility

Open source

Extensive database support

Community support

Frameworks for rapid development

Embedding in HTML

Security features

Scalability

Server-side caching

What you can build with PHP

Symfony API backends

Modernized legacy applications

CMS plugins and modules

Payment gateway integrations

Long-running PHP services

Internal tools and portals

Upgrading legacy PHP without breaking production

PHP in action

What our PHP developers know

What our PHP developers go deep on

Common PHP projects we deliver

Upgrading an end-of-life PHP version

Taming a sprawling script-based PHP monolith

Finding why PHP pages are slow

Inheriting a PHP system nobody documented

PHP solutions by industry

Ecommerce

Publishing and media

Education

SaaS and B2B

PHP vs Node.js

How to hire PHP developers in 5 steps

Share your brief

Review matched profiles

Interview & test

Onboard securely

Scale or replace

More backend technologies

Three ways to hire PHP developers

Dedicated developer

Hourly / time & materials

Fixed-price milestones

Compare ways to hire PHP developers

Hire PHP developers from anywhere

Hire PHP developers in India

Hire PHP developers in USA

Hire PHP developers in UK

Hire PHP developers in Canada

Hire PHP developers in Australia

Hire PHP developers in UAE

Hire PHP developers in Germany

Hire PHP developers in Singapore

PHP developer rates

Why teams hire PHP developers from Krapton

Vetted, full-time engineers

Ready in 24 hours

Clear hourly rates

Your IP, your repos

30-day replacement

Real timezone overlap

Services that pair well with PHP

API development

Custom software services

Application development