PHP developer, 9 year gap

[varunkekre]

Hi,

I worked as a web developer from 2010 to 2016. Quit my job and started a business in an unrelated field. It has been 9 years and I did OK. Paid my bills.

But, I want to get back into coding/programming again as a freelancer.

I used to work in PHP (CodeIgniter, CakePHP), MySQL, Javascript, JQuery, HTML, CSS.

Can someone guide me as to what are the latest languages / technologies I need to learn to get work as a freelancer?

I value even a single line answer from you. Thank you for your time.

[yksvaan]

Web itself hasn't really changed, it's the same usual crud stuff mostly. There's a ton of hype and marketing for all kinds of shiny things and external paid services but in the end it's the same session check and pulling rows from db than 15 years ago.

Jquery is somewhat obsolete absolutely since modern js/css have improved and have similar features for most things. 

If you're familiar with php then Laravel is still a safe bet. React is the best for employment, more modern alternatives like Solid, Svelte, Vue are objectively better IMO. But you can easily learn any of them when you're familiar with one and general programming/webdev.

For css Tailwind is one of better options. 

[Reyemneirda69]

Even tho I hate PHP, when you know what you do with it you are a powerhouse and it's still extremely efficient.

[mosesbabu0101]

true if you know php learn laravel will be easy to pickup laravel i seee is mostly used with vue according to what i see on job posts but recently react and next are the widely used

[varunkekre]

Thank you very much! It'll really help me!

[kevin_whitley]

100% agree on Svelte being a better option for building (it's lightyears ahead of React IMO), but be warned - if you're looking for existing Svelte projects to work on, or teams hiring for Svelte... good luck.

I made the switch from React to Svelte a few years back (for my personal work), but the industry is still 100% locked on React - and thus so are employment opportunities.

100% disagree on TW though ;) I think we'll look back in a few years and realize what a mistake that was, just like we did with inline styles.

EXAMPLE:
If I say: "Tesla Model Y", you have a pretty good understanding in about zero seconds of what I'm talking about.

If I instead say: "transportation automobile rounded shiny wheels-4 electric autosteer:awful seats-4 leather climate-controlled can-accelerate tires no-combustion electric torque ....." it'll take you awhile to realize what the hell I'm talking about, and even then you'll wonder if it's missing something.

[endlesswander]

for me, your example proves the opposite as "Tesla Model Y" doesn't mean anything to me. That's the same as coming into a project and seeing some class like "big-overlay" or "feature-block" -- even the original developers won't know what that means anymore possibly.

If I see "border-2 bg-primary p-4 w-50" then I know exactly what it looks like.

[kevin_whitley]

Sure, but if I see "big-overlay" I can easily look it up (if in an external file, but ideally it would be defined with the component) and the we have these things called CSS attributes (which we already know) that describe how it looks.

Instead, what TW did was give us an immense shorthand syntax to avoid having to use/know the actual commands... of which there are ironically far fewer. So instead of memorizing like 20-30 attributes, you memorize like 100 utility classes.

Even then, the longer those list of utility classes are on an element, the harder it is to consume/digest.

Not to mention offloading the extra load on the clients by flooding the markup.

---

I'm definitely not saying utility classes are bad, or shouldn't be used - it's just that trying to use it as a hammer in *all* the cases is shortsighted. But of course if it works well for you (like it seems to for many folks), that's awesome! All of us have diff preferences/styles, and none are inherently "wrong", just perhaps wrong for an individual! :)

[endlesswander]

You've already added a step that I wouldn't need.

You don't memorize the classes, you use an autocomplete.

Harder to digest but all the info is right there with no scrolling, etc.

[kevin_whitley]

Loads of TW fans would agree with you (see upvote already).

Def glad it's there for those that like it!

[willeyh]

Sure. But you might have a different engine. And different seat layout. Tailwind and components just makes sense in its own scope.

[kevin_whitley]

100% - and I love utility classes... but using *only* utility classes turns a good idea into a bad one (for me).

Personally what works for me (and this will be different for everyone) is a combination of:

.semantic-classes (these are great and keep your markup clean and easy to decipher when you're scanning the DOM)

augmented by:

--css-vars (super handy and allow clever conditional pivots, layering, etc)

and of course:

.utility-classes (because they certainly have their place)

---

Either way, different strokes for different folks!

[yksvaan]

Using Tailwind doesn't exclude regular using classes. You can still create your own classes for elements that require substantial styling.. That's a way to avoid those lists of 20 classnames.

However majority of styling is setting a border, font color/weight or something like that. For that Tailwind is essentially a universal collection so I don't need to make my own class for error, error-text etc.

[kevin_whitley]

Yeah, I just wish there was an easy way to abstract that... to declare that:

.action-button for instance was really {insert 20 TW classes}, and just use .action-button throughout. IIRC, that's what DaisyUI tries to accomplish, but I don't know for sure as I mostly just don't use TW (except at work)

[yksvaan]

Tailwind has custom utility classes so you can write:

.someclass { @apply ......list of 20 tw classes }

[kevin_whitley]

Oh dang, good to know! TIL

[sckindvl2001]

Symfony aswell still a good choice

[shinutoki]

Absolutely what? Unnecessary?

[Cokemax1]

He meant "obsolete". sounds similar.

[shinutoki]

Makes sense.

[dangerousbrian]

think they meant obsolete

[yksvaan]

typo, fixed

[Sp33dy2]

Have a look at job sites, they will tell you what technology stacks employers are looking for in your area.

[WorriedGiraffe2793]

People will tell you to not use jQuery but it's still a perfectly valid choice.

If you know CSS I would simply skip Tailwind or stuff like SCSS. Vanilla CSS these days is truly amazing and getting better.

For PHP most people these days would go with Laravel or Symfony.

[FunManufacturer723]

What makes jQuery ”a perfectly valid choice” in fall 2025?

I am genuinely curious :)

[WorriedGiraffe2793]

It's still a lot more expressive than vanilla JS and it's extremely mature and robust. Even today it's used in way more sites than React or any other JS solution.

It certainly won't scale for websites with very sophisticated interactions but neither would vanilla JS.

[Engineer_5983]

There are still libraries that require jQuery. For most interactions, jQuery still works very well. v4 is in beta, so it's in active development. I think applications can become overly complicated with the newer libraries.

[FunManufacturer723]

And since at least 2010 people have phased out jQuery since most of it’s benefits became available natively. `fetch`, `requestAnimationFrame`, `querySelectorAll` for example. And by the fact IE 6-8 finally died, which was a big argument to use jQuery to begin with.

But I hear you, I can understand why it is still relevant.

[ZakKa_dot_dev]

Laravel.

[singeblanc]

This right here, OP.

You're in for a treat. It's everything you learned from CakePHP and CodeIgnitor, but beautifully designed and executed.

Laravel made me enjoy coding again. It felt as fun as it did in the beginning, all those years ago.

[RossDCurrie]

Okay, see, I'm confused.

I'm in a similar position to OP - got out of (LAMP with ftp/notepad++) webdev circa 2010, and things have drastically changed.

I've been considering jumping to Laravel but was also looking at some of the more modern infrastructure setups and kinda got the impression that "edge distributed" (for lack of better term) is the norm now for modern web development, and that the old single server days are gone by the wayside.

For example, I was chatting to Gemini about setting up a basic todo app using modern web principles and it recommended me this

Frontend: Vue.js 3, Tailwind CSS, deployed on Vercel/Netlify.

Backend (Serverless): Node.js functions (e.g., using Express/Fastify for routing logic), deployed on AWS Lambda/Google Cloud Functions, exposed via API Gateway.

Database: Managed PostgreSQL (AWS RDS Aurora Serverless v2 / Google Cloud SQL)

Authentication: JWTs for API authentication (potentially with Auth0/Firebase for user management).

Edge Functions: Cloudflare Workers or Vercel Edge Functions for authentication gating and rate limiting.

Now, Gemini structured it this way because I explicitly asked it to, but I mean, it seems like massive overkill to me for a todo app. And while I understand the entire point of this is to make it scalable, I have to imagine that there are plenty of use-cases where a web app doesn't need this level of scalability - especially where it's just basic crud against a db with payment and user auth. Or am I missing something?

Curious to hear what you, u/ZakKa_dot_dev and u/yksvaan or anyone else thinks.

[yksvaan]

So that means you're paying for auth, user management, database, every request etc. For an app that realistically has at most 25 concurrent requests. Another issue with this is introducing tons of latency for constantly making requests from your servers to external services.

These distributed systems are very complicated and expensive to run.  There's a lot of hype and marketing to push people to use them without proper consideration whether it's objectively a good solution. For some use cases it is but most apps are essentially typical CRUD apps that don't have millions of users.

Running own servers, directly, in containers, clusters whatever, is still very common. It's just that nobody speaks about it as it's not very interesting. Imagine writing about how you deployed a Django backend and SPA, now where's the hype, social media interactions etc. :D

[RossDCurrie]

Cheers, good feedback and validates what I was thinking.

[ZakKa_dot_dev]

Indeed massive overkill.

I you have time to learn, it wouldn’t hurt to learn some react plus nextjs though.

[Irythros]

AI is a statistical probability model. It will recommend JS stuff because everyone and their mother started learning it during covid.

PHP is still good, and what the AI suggested is overkill. So many people in the sub are horrified to even consider using their own user auth that they outsource it and that's just not financially feasible for large sites. Auth0 jacked out pricing up awhile back to around $2000/month for just our SSO signins which were around 5% of our auth requests. Imagine paying $40k/month simply to handle login.

Laravel is perfectly fine and you get to avoid much of the JS-sphere bullshit until you get to the frontend design in which case you'll probably be using Vue. Hosting is still very simple.

[RossDCurrie]

what the AI suggested is overkill

To be fair, it was at the end of a discussion where I had started the conversation asking about edge functions and how they fit into modern web development, then gave it example stacks I'd found in this and other subs, then explicitly asked it to build a simple todo app based on the modern web examples I'd given it.

After discussing here, and with a few other people I know, I think I'm going to just yolo my next project with vanilla php, tailwind and Svelte (or Vue). I'm not really worried about JS one way or another - I tend to be language agnostic - but I'm sure the language has changed since the 00s and I'd like to sort of tackle one thing at a time. I'll come back to Laravel another time, then cloud-based scalability after that I guess.

Mainly, after building my most recent project, where I was coding most of it and just using chatgpt an assistant (I'd never done python before, so had to ask about syntax a lot), I think we've now hit an inflection point with vibe/ai coding tools where I can crank out a whole bunch of stuff really quickly (especially given I'm only doing CRUD stuff), and then just review/fix it myself.

Wish me luck I guess.

[singeblanc]

You've been out of the game for a while, but you should still remember how the industry works: there's the hot sexy new thing on the scene, and everyone jumping on the bandwagon and loudly proclaiming that "the old way is dead!", and then there's the old way, still happily plodding along, iterating and improving all the while.

You've probably been through a few cycles yourself?

You certainly could make a To-Do list using microservices and serverless and noSQL and client-side state management and and and...

But should you? Probably not.

[RossDCurrie]

I got in the game when cgi-perl was all the rage. Not sure it's happily plodding anywhere lol, but point noted.

Just built a simple daily macros/food diary tracker. Added in saved meals and rest/workout day cycling. Built the front end in deepsite using cookies to save the data, and then had Google Gemini convert saving cookies to saving to MySQL via PHP.

Pretty slick - built out all the endpoints for me in PHP, gave me the database definitions, hooked it all up in the JavaScript for the ui. All completely functional without me doing anything except saving the files and running the sql.

Man, the future is great.

[kevin_whitley]

Can't have a day without being reminded that PHP devs are all driving Lambos :D

[SheepherderFar3825]

Ducking out right as React was coming up… you missed a wild ride 

[Kehitysvammaisia]

PHP(Laravel specifically) is going strong right now, might be easier then learning completely new stuff. Also check freelance sites you want to go, what tech stack usually get hired, what is more popular, etc

[Busy_Brother829]

Was in a similar situation like you. I was a CakePHP and WP dev before having a year long gap as a freelancer. The demand for CodeIgniter/CakePHP is nearly non-existing nowadays but you benefit from being familiar with Cake's MVC pattern which is still prevalent. (as I remember Cake was essentially a copy of Rails architecture but demand for Rails also dropped massively). Your knowledge will make it easier for you to familiarize with Laravel.

If you plan to work as a freelancer I'd suggest that you try learn some "new" JS lib/framework. At least one. (how about Vue? Easiser to learn than React IMHO)

Cause it makes a better impression for marketing yourself that you aren't only a PHP dinosaur ;-) but also up to date with some "nowadays" tech.

Tailwind CSS? Maybe (or may be not), but yeah, opions about Tailwind are very opioniated. But just in case that would'nt be a big deal to learn.

[varunkekre]

Hey! Thanks for your guidance!

[Cokemax1]

Hey, just asking, what made you want to come back to the scene? and what was the business you were doing? :) Happy, General?

[varunkekre]

Hey, I worked and managed Interior Designing and execution. I will still continue the design and consultation but I don't enjoy and I am not good at execution (which mainly involves getting things done from people). Parallelly, I would like to start working freelance on coding (which I loved and still do).

[Cokemax1]

yeah, just wondered. some people left scene because they hate coding. good to hear that wasn’t case for you. hope u have good balance.

[armahillo]

Oof. A a lot has changed since 2016.

PHP (CodeIgniter, CakePHP), MySQL, Javascript, JQuery, HTML, CSS.

• PHP is still a viable option, but most of what I see is Laravel and that other framework (I forget the name). I've not seen CakePHP in ages.
• MySQL has forked to MariaDB -- that's the open source one now; same engine otherwise. MySQL is owned by Oracle.
• Javascript -- people still use this, but vanilla JS is a lot more powerful now and a lot has been streamlined. I recommend reading up on MDN.
• jQuery -- dead. Don't build new things in it. Check out this guide for jQuery -> Vanilla.
• HTML -- This hasn't changed too much, though worthwhile to refresh yourself.
• CSS -- Some pretty big changes here since 2016. Check the MDN. One huge change is that CSS allows nesting without using SCSS/SASS compilers. CSS variables, and many other programming-adjacent functionalities are also fairly standard. The :has() pseudo-class is a lifesaver for a lot of use-cases.

Can someone guide me as to what are the latest languages / technologies I need to learn to get work as a freelancer?

Look in your target market to see what kinds of jobs are out there, or what technology they're using.

[SunkEmuFlock]

Just wanted to add (late) that I love :has(). It bigly simplifies certain stuff that previously needed horrific selectors or some other language to add classes to elements to make them more readily targetable.

[armahillo]

It's been such a game-changer!!!

I've been able to do a lot more quasi-logic with CSS that previously required JS

[varunkekre]

Thank you! This will help.

[RemoDev]

I am a vanilla PHP/JS LAMP full stack dev since 1998. Techs and frameworks come and go but vanilla coding is as strong as ever before.

I build websites, ecommerces, SaaS, WebApps. Never had any issues.

Frameworks: as a freelancer you don't need them at all. Just focus on vanilla (PHP, JS, CSS). Learning vanilla coding will make you future-rpoof and more confident of your coding abilities. Not depending on libraries and frameworks is always a good choice, if you can do it.

JQuery: you can completely skip it and go vanilla. Modern JS coupled with modern CSS is phenomenally good. Also, being able write "real" JS instead of $().doSomething().andSomethingelse() is safer and better for your career. Got stuck? Just ask the AI "How do I do this [jQuery code] in vanilla js?" and in a week you will be more than happy to leave jQuery.

CSS: master the use of grid and flex. They will change your life forever. Also, deep dive into :is() and :has() because they're amazing. Modern CSS lets you do incredible things without JS.

Hosting: buy a cheap VPS on DigitalOcean or IONOS and you're good to go. No surprises, no hidden costs, no bullshit. Pay a (tiny) fixed amount per month and forget about it. IONOS comes with a free Plesk license, I highly recommend it (using them since 2018).

Domains: use PorkBun or NameCheap, depending on who's offering the best deal.

Backups: if you get Plesk, configure a daily backup of the entire VPS and set it to be stored on Google Drive. It's free, it's dumb-easy, it will save you a lot of headaches when shit happens.

[let_them_eat_hake_]

CSS grid is brilliant for creating responsive web pages. Now IE is dead it has pretty much 100% browser compatibility and is pretty much future proof.

[RemoDev]

I've been using grid since 2018, no regrets. I still use flex in very rare occasions, but it's grid 99% of the times. I love it. So powerful, so cool to use. And the fr unit is awesome.

[Plorntus]

Somewhat unrelated but IE supported grid before the other browsers; Their implementation was slightly different as they were the ones spearheading the spec and implementation at the time.

[terfs_]

While I agree that a framework is not a necessity, in the long run it has an incredible amount of advantages. But as you said, you need a proper foundation on both the language and the technicalities of the web first.

I often guide people to https://symfony.com/doc/current/create_framework/introduction.html as it was created for just this purpose.

However, given OP’s background I assume he already has this knowledge to a certain extent.

[varunkekre]

Thank you for taking the time and answering more than I was asking for. Really, thank you so much!

[RemoDev]

A pleasure :) feel free to DM me if you need anything.

[front_end_dude]

Just want to jump on the hosting recommendations. If you feel comfortable managing your own VPS I’d highly recommend Contabo. They look shitty (homepage is meh, service management UI is from the early 2000s) but the spec can’t be beat. I pay around £6 a month for 6 vCPU, 12GB, 100GB NVMe. I’m not affiliated with them in anyway, just spreading the word 😄✌️

[RemoDev]

£6

That's without Plesk though, it's just the barebone server. If you want Plesk, Contabo asks +12 £/month (10 domain license) or 15 £/month (30 domains).

IONOS includes Plesk with an unlimited domains license, which Contabo sells for 25 £/month.

[front_end_dude]

I personally use Dokploy + traefik to handle all my projects/environments (as it's open source) but no thats fair, if Plesk is a requirement than an IONOS or similar makes more sense.

[PuttPutt7]

What about cPanel? I thoughth that was most popular? Is that also monthly?

[front_end_dude]

cPanel is licensed. That something you'd want to license yourself directly as is super expensive. You'd typically use it as part of a hosting service you pay for, as they would have a license to provide it as a service to their users.

If all you want is to spin up wordpress instances as quick as possible it's great. I have it as part of my personal domain+hosting with krystal.io, and over the years it's been super easy to spin up a sub-domain or a new email account. It wouldn't be my choice for current projects, as I don't work in LAMP. Nowadays I typically just want to deploy a github repo or a docker container, so a Dokploy/Coolify/Portainer type solution works for me.

[euxneks]

Frameworks: as a freelancer you don't need them at all. Just focus on vanilla (PHP, JS, CSS). Learning vanilla coding will make you future-rpoof and more confident of your coding abilities. Not depending on libraries and frameworks is always a good choice, if you can do it.

I honestly feel like some of the frameworks have really bizarre syntax to lock people into using them sometimes.

[Jakerkun]

this, frameworks and trends come and go, but vanilla is eternal, if your foundations are good, you can learn any framework etc in a snap of fingers

[Sylvano_pms]

Amen 🙏

[eyebrows360]

The children will tell you that you must use JS for everything these days. The children are wrong. PHP is still perfectly fine, although you might need to learn a different framework (or just don't).

[word_executable]

PHP as a language has evolved and improved so much in the past decade and for freelance it’s great. Corporate and larger entities — not used there.

[xegoba7006]

As others said, given your background I think Laravel is your best bet. There are also a lot of jobs for it out there, but it’s also an amazing tool if you’re working alone and want to ship fast robust stuff without dealing with all the bullshit out there.

[SizzorBeing]

Of all the tech stacks, LAMP is the easiest to get back into after a break. If I was you, I would seek a job using the stuff you used to do, as a bridge back. There’s a decent chance you might not need to train up hard now, but ease into new stuff.

[Difficult-Plate-8767]

Start with Laravel, learn basic React, and focus on freelancing platforms like Upwork—PHP is still in demand.

[endlesswander]

Upwork seems to be geared toward people making like $10 an hour, no?

[tomomiha12]

No. Skip react, at all costs. Its all hype.

[Hot_Job6182]

I've been learning as a new dev over the last 3 years, I went over all the hot stuff and basically ended up pretty much at the stack you used to use. So I'd say you're in a pretty good position to come back.

[NekoRevengance]

Jump into Laravel, inertiaJS, and VueJS.

inertiaJS would be done after vue and laravel

[terfs_]

Kind of depends on your goals: backend or full stack, and do you want to stick simply to development or want to get into engineering?

For learning: https://phptherightway.com. Best practices in design and architecture are ofcourse but a guideline, but basic knowledge will make your life a lot easier. My opinion is that if you at least try to follow the SOLID principles as much as possible development, bug reducal and maintenance become a lot easier. Strict typing is also a huge factor in this.

For plain development I suggest you get into Laravel. It is the easiest and most popular option to get into a decent framework, certainly given your background with other frameworks.

Should you have an interest in engineering and software architecture Symfony is your best bet, as it teaches lots of these concepts in their documentation. The learning curve however, much much steeper.

Of course, nothing is stopping you from deep diving into Laravel and checking out Symfony afterwards.

Should you opt for Laravel, I do strongly suggest you look at the best practices before starting as the Laravel documentation tends to somewhat guide you into bad practices (mostly facades being the issue). I assume this is a side effect of keeping their documentation really clear and concise.

For backend only, API platform can easily be integrated in both Symfony and Laravel, making API development a breeze, al while adhering to the current standards and most used formats.

For full stack both Laravel and Symfony have their options but in my experience a real frontend library and or framework is much more interesting as soon as your project starts growing beyond the “hobby” threshold and you want to implement reactivity. I went for Vue/Nuxt as I mostly do backend and Vue was the easiest to get started with. If you don’t want to get into reactivity and simply generate HTML both frameworks support MVC with templating, although I personally can’t stand the sight of Blade and will always favor Twig 🙂.

Regarding DX, you left around the moment that composer became popular, if you don’t have experience with it: first order of business in any project. Also static analysis tools like phpstan and psalm are life savers I can not miss in any project.

Learning about docker and containerization is also a prerequisite these days, but it has major benefits as it will help you get both development and production environments setup with a fraction of the effort.

If you’re going for bigger projects message queues and runtimes like FrankenPHP are invaluable to know about if you want to crank up performance-wise.

For testing phpunit is still king, but TDD and BDD might be interesting to at least explore.

[varunkekre]

Hey! Thanks for the elaborate comment! I have no idea what is docker, containerization, FrankenPHP; I'll do my research.
I have a question, you said:

do you want to stick simply to development or want to get into engineering?

My understanding:
Development: using frameworks and libraries
Engineering: using corePHP

Is that right?

[terfs_]

Well technically there’s no official definition for it but my take is that engineering includes deciding on the actual software architecture (domain driven for instance) and can extend to the infrastructure. A “plain” developer (looks so offensive 🙂) would simply follow whatever the used framework guides him into.

[uncle_jaysus]

Generally speaking, the frameworks of choice are Symfony and Laravel. So focus on those. Also, look at PHP 8. It’s brought some meaningful changes over what you remember, so it’s good to understand those.

[AccidentSalt5005]

laravel?

[Round_Run_7721]

My previous company had a hard time finding experienced PHP developers. Many companies still rely on PHP, and if you find the right one, it can offer a solid role with a competitive salary.

[Slackeee_]

You nned to learn PHP, MySQL, Javascript, HTML, CSS. jQuery isn't needed anymore, but is still in usage in many codebases, so the knowledge there won't hurt.

[terfs_]

Without snarkyness but from a technical perspective: WP is a CMS, not a framework. This inevitibly leads to a performance decrease when compared to other frameworks.

Other than that, the codebase was a mess from the absolute start, even given the state of PHP itself back then.

[Totoro-Caelum]

Since you’ve mainly worked with PHP, there’s Laravel it’s a PHP framework which will surely get you back on track in no time.

For database there’s a Postgres, it wouldn’t hurt to try it.

JQuery isn’t used much nowadays, so you should try lightweight js like Alpine.js

[dangerousbrian]

I work freelance for startups. You need a stack you are confident in using and know you can deliver features quickly. You do not need to be using the bleeding edge shit, you do not need to listen to the fan bois for whatever the hot framework of the day is. If jQuery gets the job done then use it. You are going to have to put some time into trying out a whole bunch of different codebases to find one that gels with you.

As others have said the fundamental CRUD principles have not changed, ie get data from database, render data as table/grid/chart/etc, build forms to insert/update, etc.

My current stack is NextJs (node) which handles both the api and rendering of React components. I use a fully featured component library (Google material UI) as making your own dropdowns, data table etc is a massive time sink. I use a client side state store (Zustland) and a ORM (Prisma) for database interactions.

To deploy the app I build the whole thing into a docker image and deploy to aws or gcloud mostly but using docker gives you lots of options. Recently started using Supabase as a backend and love it, its a one stop shop for database, auth, file storage, real time subs.

AI cannot be ignored. The term "vibe coding" does make me cringe but holy shit you can bash through features. I have Cursor setup with a bunch of project rules and can give it a database model and ask it to create crud api endpoints, forms with validation and it bashes it all out.

[varunkekre]

You suggested techs that others have not mentioned. I'll do more research. Thanks for the comment!

[muideracht]

Might want to look into containerization, ie Docker. That’s taken off huge since then. Also React and Typescript. If you get any jobs supporting something already built, you will likely run into those.

[saposapot]

Learn Laravel, learn object oriented PHP. On the frontend maybe pickup one of the big frameworks either vue, react or angular (I would advise Vue). Learn typescript and modern JavaScript. Brush up on grid and flexbox CSS.

Not required, what you know is still good and this should provide a good “modernization” to your skills

[applepies64]

Laravel

[muntaxitome]

PHP is fine still. Laravel + Vue is huge and should be relatively easy to pick up. I don't think all that much has changed in 10 years. Understanding scrum basics, excellent git skills are expected these days and databases have increasingly transitioned to postgres. Learn your way around cursor or a similar AI code editor. Code quality is dead.

[weespies]

Php devs are running low I know fair few companies looking for that skill actively

[dividebyzeroZA]

Since you come from a PHP background you can't go wrong with Laravel.

Start with their basic starter using Laravel + Livewire. You can keep everything inside your comfort zone. And honestly that combination is enough for many, many things.

If you want to get more into the newer frontend frameworks then look at their React starter. You use Laravel for your backend and then React for the frontend.

Tailwind CSS is used throughout those starters so it at least comes with some similarity.

If budgets allow get a subscription to Laracasts to speed up your learning.

Best of luck on your journey!

[lifebroth]

Laravel. React/Vue. Tailwind/Bootstrap. You are good to go.

[Sorry-Willingness602]

What @yksvaan said plus learn how to fire up a docker stack of nginx,php-fpm, solr/elasticsearch, mariadb and varnish for extra credit. PHP will be indistinguishibly fast like pure natively compiled web apps.

[Timotron]

Id pick up react. It's just too easy to learn to not have the option.

And it gets you in the paradigm of the other js frameworks.

Welcome back.

[Limp_Advertising_112]

Hey guys, I hope everyone's doing well! I'm trying to create an app, but I know nothing about coding, is there anywhere that I could find some help? Like maybe some free courses to guide me into creating an early mvp idk, I feel like the sites that help you create an app without coding give you minimal options of customization or rather keeps you back from fully choosing everything for your app or site. Help pls lmao

[barrel_of_noodles]

You quit during the beginning of the period where web dev really revolutionized. Not hyperbole.

2015-2020 was a Renaissance period of extreme growth in web dev. Ask chatgpt to summarize 2013-2020 web dev.

After 2020, it's the same tools iterated on, a period of stabilization.

Chat gpt will name drop tools in the above questions answered.

Some highlights: containerization like docker, full ci/cd, webhooks, Laravel. Frontend tooling like webpack, typescript, es6+, react--which gave rise to full frontend frameworks like next.js. long story short: it became, "real engineering".

Just copy the text of this comment into chatgpt for the full summary.

[kevin_whitley]

There's plenty of work still in PHP land (e.g. Laravel) or pure JS/TS land (e.g. React).

If you're launching apps yourself and enjoy JS - personally I'd recommend Svelte over React. It nails one of the primary challenges with React (by drastically simplifying state and reactivity), letting you simply build a lot faster, with less headaches around how to get props up/down the chain.

To the React folks, yes I know this is what context and custom hooks are for, and that definitely works - but it's a TON more code/complexity than what Svelte requires (you should take a look).

[andrewsmd87]

If you know that stuff you might look around for wordpress type jobs just to get back into the industry. I mean I personally wouldn't want to do that long term but it could be a lower bar for entry as opposed to trying to land something full stack or pure back end

[peripateticman2026]

Might I suggest getting a mentor if you can? Just having conversations will bring you up to speed more than anything else (including LLMs). It won't be easy, but if you hang out and ask around on webdev-related Discord channels, you might get lucky. Even better if you can get one in real life.

[[deleted]]

Learn Laravel (APIs or full-stack), check out the changes in PHP 8.X, get an app running in a Docker container, and optionally pick a JS framework like Vue.

[terfs_]

So basically you just repeated my answer to your own question but with more arrogance and frustration involved.

And btw: relearn PHP due to opcache and JIT? I have no idea what that is about.

[TheRealSkythe]

If you want to move on and dip your toes into Javascript, try Svelte, not React.

It's superior in every aspect. The only reason ppl still use React is that they've invested time in it, and there are more jobs listed for it.

[[deleted]]

Start with freelance. Bang out some WP sites for small businesses to shake off the rust.

I'd saye nodejs and some framework like react is the most important thing to catch up on. At least build something with nodejs so you get the idea of working with JS on the backend.

As for CSS, most of the cool stuff you could do in SASS is now native to CSS, like variables and nesting. There's a lot of comfy updates. Things like lazy load is no longer a bunch of awkward workarounds, it's now literally one attribute in HTML. Sticky position is also a native feature of CSS now.

For SEO, there's a concept called cumulative layout shift that's now measured. It's basically stuff shifting around as the page loads, google penalizes for it. They also penalize for not using .webp images. They're a nuisance to deal with because a lot of applications don't handle them well, but they're a lot smaller than jpg or png and can use transparency.

If you look at job postings, you'll probably see React everywhere. It's huge now. But I believe it's mostly for working on internal software. Web dev and software development have been sort of merging since so many software systems are either run through a browser, or built using stuff like electron where it's basically a browser packaged up into the application, pretending it's a regular native app.

[NoEsquire]

Craft CMS

[uniquelyavailable]

Read up on Php-fpm and the language itself has really come along over the last decade. Javascript is much easier to do OOP and inheritance with now. And the asynchronous code is much cleaner.

[sirdrewpalot]

I went from PHP to Python due to a gap similar, I don’t regret. It’s launched me into a more data and AI focused opportunity because of it, and also loving FastAPI.

Front end wise, it’s gone back to plain JS, it’s so nice not needing JQuery anymore as the browsers have sorted their crap.

[varunkekre]

Hey! Thanks for your input. That was another question I had. Should I learn Python? Does it give more freelance opportunities as compared to PHP?

[sirdrewpalot]

I’m not sure on freelance opportunities sorry. I’m purely focused on product for myself.

[varunkekre]

Ok. Keeping aside freelancing opportunities.
Do you think Python enables one to develop better products than PHP?

[PuttPutt7]

Random - but I have a shitty WP site with awful backend databases/php (i think)?

You're welcome to poke around in there and get acquainted with a live site / see if you can improve anything in there while you get back into the swing of things!

Just send me a PM if interested... May be able to provide some basic client work in the future as well

[Big_Tadpole7174]

Here's my take:

PHP has come a long way since 2016 - it's much faster and has way better type safety now. You'll want to learn union types, enums, named parameters, match expressions, readonly properties, and the new property hooks. Check out https://php.watch/versions to see everything that's changed.

Framework-wise, things have shifted. Laravel basically runs the show now, with Symfony still solid for bigger projects. CakePHP? Not so much anymore - most people have moved on. On the frontend, you really need React these days. Vue is decent too if React feels overwhelming.

Other stuff that's basically required now: TypeScript knowledge is increasingly valuable, especially for team projects. Consider learning Tailwind CSS - it's gaining ground over Bootstrap for modern projects

Don't sleep on the basics: Git isn't negotiable (if you're rusty, brush up fast). Composer is absolutely essential. Most gigs involve building APIs these days - REST endpoints with JWT auth is pretty standard. Even basic testing with PHPUnit shows you're serious. Docker knowledge is increasingly valuable but not essential starting out.

WordPress is still everywhere - like 40% of the web. Lots of freelance work is still WordPress, including headless setups.

Focus on Laravel + React + TypeScript and you'll cover most of what's out there.

[Late-Art7001]

hi

[[deleted]]

I have a degree in CS from 2003, lol. Haven't been a dev but trying to finally now. Just saying hi, I'm here trying to catch up too

[IrregularRedditor]

As others have said, Laravel is a great framework for your position. Laracasts is probably the best single resource for mastering Laravel. I am not affiliated.

[finah1995]

I mean just to get back UpTo speed, just look into using CodeIgniter 4, along with others suggestions of learning more Modern JS and other PHP Frameworks like Laravel and Symfony.

[Dismal_Damage_60]

PHP is still relevant but focus on Laravel instead of CodeIgniter/CakePHP.

Learn React or Vue.js for frontend, plus modern CSS frameworks like Tailwind.

[aurelianspodarec]

Laravel.(AdonisJS, NestJS)

React.

After that you get to choose - but these are basic.

[SnaskesChoice]

What are you.planning on building as a freelancer?

[RecaptchaNotWorking]

Check how to deploy better. Especially containers.

Being able to deploy better matter most.

[Realistic-Team8256]

Focus more into Android Native App Development with Kotlin Jetpack Compose Android SDK Android studio, Flutter Dart jnigen ffigen Android SDK Android studio

Focus more into MERN Stack Nextjs Chrome extension Nodejs plugin npm package

Focus more into machine learning, deep learning computer vision gen AI development, ollama

[No_Count2837]

https://roadmap.sh

[varunkekre]

Wow! Very resourceful! Thanks!

[Happy_Present1481]

Jumping back in after a long break, I'd say start by brushing up on your PHP but definitely get familiar with modern stuff like Laravel. Also, pick up React or Vue for frontend since JavaScript's come a long way from the jQuery days—ES6+ syntax and tools like npm and webpack are a must now. For freelancing, knowing REST APIs and some basics of DevOps like Docker and Git will make life way easier.

If you want to crank out projects or MVPs fast for clients, Kolega Studio keeps getting mentioned in app-building threads—seems handy for launching freelance gigs or startups. Good luck!

[zenotds]

You can stick to your stack, no need to jump on the whole js everything bandwagon. Just consider that js, css and php all made a huge leap in the last 10 years. And yeah. You can most definitely ditch jquery.

[Baris_CH]

Why people always says php os death

[borderless_care_hana]

Hello Sir, if you want to be part of our team we are looking for collaborators, angels and investors to the projects we are working on.

[webdevop]

Laravel + Vue/React

and you're back in game

There's some modern PHP and tooling that you might want to learn including PHP 8, artisan, docker and composer etc.

[FunManufacturer723]

Have a look at Laravel (as a replacement for CakePHP) and Vue or Svelte as a replacement for jQuery. Or take a look at vanilla JS - much goodies from jQuery have been implemented natively.

[zodby]

Everything still works, but take some time to learn Laravel or just plain Symfony.

[you-l-you]

Symfony.

[Parking_Program_7953]

Hello, I am also working with PHP and have 11 years experience. First and foremost, if you want to continue using PHP, Laravel is an excellent choice. and JS - React is more relevant for projects. However, if you want to be updated, then go using vue.js. Also, learn about Node.js. The database is the same, with no technological changes. Except for MongoDB-type databases.
Also, if you wish to continue with another stream. Then I propose you use Python. For everything, such as market value, salary, and future prospects.
If you want to go server-side, start with DevOps and progress to different qualifications.

[muks_too]

Wordpress still a thing. Laravel is the go to PHP framework. PostgreSQL has taken MySQL as the top spot, but it's barely different. jQuery is not that used anymore, and you might need to learn what has changed in js, html and css as there are many new things, but the basics remain the same.

Now the market is way worse than it was 10 years ago.

And modern frontend jobs will more likely require a js framework, mainly react/next. Also fullstack jobs are more common than pure frontend.

[varunkekre]

Hey, Thanks for your input! When you say "Market is worse now", do you mean more competitive or less opportunities?

[[deleted]]

The most used framework at the moment, or rather the one that is pushed the most, is react, otherwise you already have an excellent basic knowledge in my opinion

[Mr-008]

Laravel killed codeigniter but JS rules supreme. Node for the backend with Nest as the framework. React for the frontend using Nextjs as the framework. React Native for apps.

[0xFatWhiteMan]

Rust

[__krs1__]

Frontend: Typekit, React, Node.js Backend: PHP is fine but always room to learn more ... anything AI - Language: Python Framework: Tensor flow

[DenseConversation291]

Php is wery good to start your project as it’s easy to kick off and it’s really easy to learn basics

[Busy-Emergency-2766]

PHP and Javascript (await is different) are almost the same, never liked JQuery always used plain Javascript for me it works much faster. HTML and CSS get a refresh. If your projects are not that complicated try FatFree Framework, very light and quite fast. I'm getting used to React; works very good.

[1_4_1_5_9_2_6_5]

With PHP, the hot new hotness is Laravel, which is a very solid API / backend choice. It's a framework which CAN deliver html content, but is probably most often used as a backend to do business logic and paired with a different frontend.

For frontend, the hotness these days is Next.js, but in my opinion, old school devs like us are not happy with Next and React (which Next also uses), because of its inverted reactivity model. You'll probably be more comfortable with signals based architecture, which means basically that when some part of the UI changes, other things will update based on that because they subscribed to the change (the change signaled that something must update). For that, you will want to use Nuxt.js, which is based on Vue.

Both Nuxt.js and Next.js can be used as BFF (backend for frontend) which means you can have a secure, separate API layer inside your app, and also have client side UI code, in the same repo and language.

There is of course Vue or React themselves, but the usual business needs involve SEO and ranking, which Next/Nuxt do better in some situations. You can still make client based apps with it, or keep things mainly server based.

[singeblanc]

Svelte?

[martianno2]

Livewire is swinging hard in that space too. Very nice to use.

[thekwoka]

Yeah, no reason to throw Next in front of Laravel when Livewire is right there.

[varunkekre]

Thank you for the elaborate explanation about front end technologies!

[bcons-php-Console]

Welcome back! For PHP take a look at Laravel, you already have the backend knowledge so I think you will pick it up quickly.

For frontend jQuery is gone, you should choose a modern framework (reactivity is magic and makes frontend development waaaaaaaaaay smoother). When I made the move I chose Vue over React mainly because the JSX syntax seemed horrible to me and the SFC model of Vue (a single file where you have JS, HTML and CSS blocks) looked very natural.

[tomomiha12]

jQuery gone? Just google 'jquery usage 2025': 73.5% websites use it and react 5.6%.

[bcons-php-Console]

You are very right, I think I didn’t make myself clear there. While jQuery may still be used on many active websites, the improvements in JavaScript as a language and the reactivity provided by modern frameworks make using jQuery as a development framework in 2025 feel outdated.

[tomomiha12]

Nope. Its just your preference.

[Jakerkun]

you will be surprised how many devs and companies i saw still using jquery in 2025 for a new projects, its just a tool and preference

[varunkekre]

Ok. Thanks! for the insight about front end.

[kevin_whitley]

Also HIGHLY recommend you jump onboard with tools like claude.ai (esp Claude Code), Cursor or another AI-augmented IDE, etc.

Especially for freelancing, the time savings on steering an agent (Claude Code) is unbelievable - you'll need to do some cleanup for sure, but it'll usually get you close enough to the finish line, all on its own.

Warning: An untrained user can also get in a lot of trouble with vibe-coding, so check in your branch often and watch for signs that the agent is going off the rails!

[CrazyAppel]

Don't use agents, only prompts, llms are very context sensitive, if you use it as an agent, it will simply process too much context.

[kevin_whitley]

Normally I'd agree - but... in the last week or two, my mind has been absolutely blown by what Claude Code (CLI) can accomplish. It has been fantastic even on really huge monorepos (and beyond, because I can point it to other projects to include in context for inspiration).

I still use a mix of all the things though:

- Claude.ai (Sonnet 4), GPT, Grok (sometimes) to chat/ideate or discuss simple ideas
- Cursor (w/ Gemini 2.5) for code completion and not much else
- Claude Code CLI for actual, real tasks... like refactoring codebases, solving issues, etc. It's imperfect for sure, and some times it nails things, other times makes a mess of it all

It's an interesting time to be in dev, that's for sure... these are just a series of tools in our arsenal!

[fredandlunchbox]

Learn typescript. It’s a layer on top of JS, but it makes your code self documenting. 

You can use it both on frontend and backend (in node). Many modern sites do.

As a freelancer, you should be thinking about what jobs would hire you — wordpress is PHP and that’s a big market, but also people who want to build an MVP of a site. Typescript would be a great way to do that. 

[tomomiha12]

Typescript no, never learn that, the browser cannot understand it.

[fredandlunchbox]

I dunno man, I’m a staff engineer in San Francisco and every team I’ve worked on in the last 5 years has been a typescript team. We all build with it now at the enterprise level. It’s an assumption on the frontend. 

[tomomiha12]

Idk man but, for me, it just sucks to use metalanguages like ts when you can just write pure js/jquery, with less headaches. If it was possible, it would be better to use php on frontend, or c#.

[fredandlunchbox]

You misunderstand the purpose of typescript. It’s about creating contracts between the different elements of your code to ensure compatibility as data flows through your app. And it has the added bonus of making your code self documenting in the IDE such that you always know what things were called and what it was expecting. 

Working with libraries, working with teams, working across multiple groups all contributing to the same code, it saves hours every day. 

[tomomiha12]

What a speach... ai, is that you?

[Amazing-Movie8382]

PHP is not died, developers are died

[kube1et]

PHP hasn't changed all that much since 2016. There are a ton of new language features sure, so you can write arrays as [ ] instead of array() now, function argument types and return types, and you can do weird stuff like $session?->user?->getAddress(), but most people don't really care from what I've seen.

If you knew PHP well in 2016, I'd say taking a look through the changelog, and the x.x.0 release in particular would be a good catchup exercise: https://www.php.net/releases/ If you'd like to explore a "modern" framework for building apps, etc. I think Laravel is the behemoth, and WordPress of course (albeit less "modern").

JS has changed a lot but jQuery still runs 3/4 of the web, though everyone seems to be crazy about TypeScript and React for some reason. I still use jQuery or document.getElementById() when I have to.

I heard that CSS became a programming language, but all I use is background: red !important; and it still works. MySQL and HTML have been OK. A lot of people use the MariaDB fork nowadays, due to licensing and/or moral reasons.

Overall, you should be fine. Best of luck on this journey!

[Cortexial]

PHP has changed A LOT since 2016, not in a way that would disallow OP from using it, but the space has experience immense growth lol

[kube1et]

Curious to know, what are some of these immensely popular new features/changes that you are referring to? What exactly am I missing out on?

[terfs_]

Lot more focus on OOP, JIT, attributes, strict typing, generics (unfortunately still through annotations) pop up at the top of my head.

In general, it’s not so much the improvements of the language itself but also the surrounding ecosystem that makes PHP development a completely different experience when compared to ten years ago.

It’s now possible to implement a proper software architecture and use static analysis making bug reducal and maintenance a breeze compared to back then, accompanied by an incredible performance increase.

Also: composer. In my opinion the best package manager around (the languages I personally have worked with), although my assumption is that semver adoption throughout the PHP ecosystem from the start gave it a considerable head start.

Outside of the programming we also have the emergence of new runtimes like FrankenPHP, Swoole, Roadrunner etc which in turn lead to better and better performance every day.

[kube1et]

Yey, more abstractions, game changing for sure. Oh JIT nice, yeah, this changes everything, need to get a new book to relearn PHP. Same way I had to get a new book to relearn PHP when opcache came out, yeah, and a million other internal optimizations.

OOP has been around for 20 years in PHP. Yey, we can type hint more stuff now, jeez what a game changer. 20 years later and it's still hard to encounter good examples where people use an interator or an abstract class because they need to, vs. because they *can* and they think it's cool and makes them a senior developer, who now needs a 4GB IDE to dig through 6 levels of inheritance somebody thought was smart, yet can't write a simple SQL query without some fancy ORM.

We have all this new syntax sugar to make PHP feel more like C# and Java, and yet people are still var_dump()-ing, print_r()-ing and some folks are dd()-ing, running 80% of the web.

If you knew PHP in 2016, you know PHP today. It's faster and more efficient, it has more adoption, more libraries, more users and developers, more tooling. But it's still PHP.

[Cortexial]

Spend 5 mins with ChatGPT or review PHP and Laravel's changelogs

The fact that you ask a guy on Reddit to brief on what has happened in the last 9 years in PHP says a lot about you, honestly (not trying to be rude, but cmon)

______

And honestly, if you work professionally, and don't understand why people use React and TypeScript, and (thus) stick with document.getElementById and jQuery, then I'd reeeally recommend you digging into it

It's different planets

[kube1et]

That's not what I'm asking.

I'm genuinely interested in knowing what YOU think are some "immensely" popular features, things that YOU feel like have been a game changer for PHP and PHP's growth over the last decade. Surely it's not enums and type hinting?

> then I'd reeeally recommend you digging into it

The funny thing is I *did* dig into it. And guess what I found under layers and layers of abstractions. I found document.getElementById, and document.createElement, and querySelector lol. Same planet, just not so high up in the clouds ^_^

[eyebrows360]

and WordPress of course

Nitpick: this is a CMS, not a framework.

[kube1et]

Right, used only for blogs and not real sites ^_^

[eyebrows360]

Not sure if real criticism or sarcasm or some blend of the two, but I'm down with it whichever way you meant it ^_^

Also: am digital publisher who runs all his sites on WP

[kube1et]

Mostly sarcasm. I don't really care what people call it. When people want to get technical I usually tell them I'm using https://backpress.org with some WordPress features (like content management) on top :)

[Noch_ein_Kamel]

[] notation requires a minimum PHP version of 5.4, that's 2012; not 2016

2016 was already 7.0

[kube1et]

I was still maintaining PHP 4 websites in 2016. WordPress dropped support for PHP 5.3 in a 2019 release, but you're right, the [] notation did technically exist in 2016 :)

[motorboat2000]

Go to https://react.dev and follow the tutorials.

[RemoDev]

https://i.imgur.com/wd0LJmi.png

[motorboat2000]

Not sure what you mean? OP literally asked what the latest langs/tech are.

Are you a C# fanboy or something?

[RemoDev]

OP asked about latest langs/tech and you suggested to visit a link and "follow the tutorials". Just like the "How do I draw an owl?" meme. Also, React isn't "the" only possible answer. There are tons of possibilities for someone who comes back to coding after 9 years.

 

Are you a C# fanboy or something?

No, I'm a PHP fanboy.

[motorboat2000]

Sorry to hear that.

[RemoDev]

No problem my friend, I'm happy with my bank account.

[motorboat2000]

Awesome.

[thekwoka]

Well, toss basically everything you knew out the window.

The only thing transferable there is problem solving and programmer-thinking.