"PHP doesn't scale"
Your Quick Response
"Wikipedia handles 16+ billion page views monthly. Etsy processes $12.6 billion GMV annually. Slack processes millions of messages daily. The scaling 'problem' isn't PHP -it's architecture. Any language can fail to scale with poor architecture, and any language can scale with proper design. PHP's shared-nothing architecture actually makes horizontal scaling straightforward."
Companies Scaling with PHP
Facebook/Meta
Social Network
Wikipedia
Knowledge Platform
Etsy
E-commerce
Slack
Enterprise Communication
Why PHP Actually Scales Well
Shared-Nothing Architecture
PHP's request-response model means each request is independent. No shared state between requests makes horizontal scaling trivial -just add more servers behind a load balancer.
Stateless by Design
Unlike long-running processes in Node.js or Python, PHP naturally handles stateless requests. This simplifies scaling and reduces memory leak concerns.
Battle-Tested Infrastructure
PHP has 30 years of production experience. Tools for caching (OPcache, Redis), load balancing, and database scaling are mature and well-documented.
The Real Truth
Scaling is an architecture problem, not a language problem. Twitter famously had scaling issues with Ruby, but that didn't make Ruby "unscalable." The same applies to PHP. With proper architecture -caching, database optimization, CDNs, horizontal scaling -PHP handles any load. The evidence? Some of the world's largest websites prove it daily.
Key Talking Points
- Facebook serves 3+ billion users on PHP infrastructure
- PHP's shared-nothing architecture makes horizontal scaling easy
- Scaling is about architecture, not language choice
- Mature tooling for caching, load balancing, and database optimization