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Fact checked by As one of the 10 most popular languages in the latest Stack Overflow Developer Survey, it should be no surprise that PHP is responsible for powering the back end of more than 75% of websites on the Internet in 2023.
That’s impressive! And, when you consider that tech giants like WordPress, Facebook, Wikipedia, and more are using PHP, it makes perfect sense.
As an open-source scripting language that’s been around for nearly 30 years, PHP has a sizable and fiercely loyal community of developers. It’s also really easy to learn, making it an ideal first language for beginners in web development. But don’t let that fool you; PHP is a powerful language that can be used to create advanced functionalities for complex projects.
One of the best ways to learn PHP, or to enhance your PHP knowledge, is to build PHP projects. These are also awesome ways to create or improve your portfolio, which can really help you to stand out from the crowd when applying for web developer jobs.
This article has found the 13 best PHP projects in 2023 to take your PHP skills and portfolio to the next level. And with PHP projects for beginners, intermediate devs, and advanced-level PHP developers, there’s something for everyone.
Looking to learn PHP or level up your skills? Check out The Best PHP Books
Briefly, What Is PHP?
Simply put, PHP is an open-source and general-purpose scripting language that’s used to develop web apps and websites. Initially created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 to monitor traffic on his Personal Home Page (PHP), it was released to the general public in 1995 and has since garnered a long-standing reputation as an easy-to-learn open-source language.
The most distinguishing feature of PHP is that all PHP code is executed on the back-end server before returning the result to the client browser. This means the client will only be able to see the result of the PHP code after it executes, not the actual PHP source code. But that’s not the only benefit of using PHP.
- Fast, efficient, and secure
- Easily embedded within HTML files
- Runs on mobiles and desktops/laptops
- Implements hashing techniques for user data encryption
- Can be used to build desktop apps
- Connects to databases to access, update, or modify data
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PHP Projects for Beginners
1. Chatbot for College Students
This is one of the best simple PHP project ideas for beginners, as it lets you build a Chatbot web application to respond to common college student messages and queries with AI.
The chatbot analyzes student queries and returns the most appropriate answer. If a student thinks the Chatbot’s answer is insufficient, they can provide feedback for you to provide more information to the Chatbot for that query. This allows you to improve the Chatbot's accuracy by adding new answers in the admin area.
As an added bonus, you can even host this Chatbot web app on the cloud using AWS, GCP, or any other cloud provider.
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
This PHP beginners project lets you learn how to build a simple CRM to manage customer data and interactions with the open-source SuiteCRM.
With this PHP project, you’ll learn to create login forms, add customer details, and track customer interactions via email or phone. You’ll also export data into various formats for reporting purposes.
3. Timetable Generator
If you’re looking for practical PHP projects with source code, this is a great way to learn about object-oriented programming, database management, and other essential programming concepts.
You’ll build a web app with a timetable generator to create and manage student classroom schedules. You can also add additional features like varying time zones, student options to select classes based on requirements, or attendance record updates in real-time.
4. RSS Feed Reader
If you’re a blog subscriber looking for PHP mini projects with source code, this cool PHP project for beginners lets you build an RSS feed reader to stay updated with blog posts or any other content you want to follow. This is also a great way to learn about web services and APIs.
You’ll be able to combine multiple RSS feeds into a single feed, then create a simple web application that allows users to search for and subscribe to different RSS feeds. You can even implement extra features like bookmarking, managing feed subscriptions, or email notifications.
5. Product Rating System
This is one of the best PHP project ideas for beginners or improvers that are interested in AI, as you’ll be building a rating system for customer reviews.
This makes use of a Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithm to rate products based on customer reviews that are stored within a database. You can even mine and match keywords in reviewsto analyze sentiment. Pretty neat, right?
Intermediate PHP Project Ideas
6. Appointment Manager
This is one of the best PHP project ideas to use PHP with MySQL on the server side and Ajax with JavaScript on the client side to create a web app to serve as an appointment management system for healthcare professionals.
This is a great way to brush up on your back-end database skills, as you’ll be using a MySQL database to store key information about doctors, patients, and patient appointments.
7. Movie Recommendation System
If you’re interested in data science, this PHP project to build a movie recommendation system is the one for you. Using the Kaggle movies dataset, you’ll have access to a vast store of detailed information about 45,000 movies, like descriptions, release dates, genres, languages, and more.
With this project, you’ll be using Laravel to build a PHP web app that simulates Netflix. This also includes a MySQL database on the backend.
Your web app will include a randomly selected movie each time the page is reloaded and a range of carousels with 10 random movies in various genres. Users can view movie details and then access movie recommendations based on these selections via collaborative filtering techniques.
Interested in ways to boost your PHP skills? Check out
8. Photo Editor
This photo editing application is one of those elegantly powerful PHP project ideas that blend JavaScript and PHP to produce a web app for users to create beautiful digital artwork. This PHP project also forces you to use object-oriented programming, which is a great way to hone these skills.
Using XAMPP, you’ll provide an array of tools for users to draw whatever they want! At the center of this project is the ‘brush tool’, allowing users to select various colors and brush sizes to produce creative drawings.
9. Facebook App
This web application project lets you recreate the popular social media platform, Facebook.
Expect to use PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and AJAX to build out the key functionalities we’re all used to having with Facebook, like posting images, status updates, and comments on a timeline.
You’ll also build a login and sign-up page, group chat feature, search function, and password recovery. So it’s fair to say this is the real deal, and it’s a fantastic way to learn about the full-stack design that goes into something as massive as Facebook. Definitely, a strong option to add to your portfolio.
Advanced PHP Projects With Source Code
10. Ad Server
This PHP project lets you build an ad server, a powerful tool digital marketers use to reach their desired audience.
In the simplest sense, an ad server is a web server that delivers ads to website visitors. To replicate this, you’ll build three modules. The first is an admin to control user processes and monitor user activities. The second will be for advertisers to add advertisers.
11. E-Commerce Website
This E-commerce website project is a classic use case for PHP. You’ll combine PHP with MySQL to build a range of system features like product navigation, user profiles, and a front-end admin panel for managing products and orders.
Deceptively simple, this powerful PHP project is a great way to learn the full-stack process of creating something as ubiquitous as an online shopping website.
12. Blood Bank & Donor Management System
This project combines PHP and SQL to build a blood bank management system. You’ll be building a web app with an admin and user area to simulate a real-world system that needs to manage blood donor details and key blood donation information.
Features you’ll be building include user registration pages and informational searching pages, and as another example of a full-stack project, you’ll need to use PHP and SQL skills to create this web app.
13. Stock Management Platform
This project requires you to combine PHP with MySQL, HTML, CSS, Ajax, and JavaScript to create a web application to help businesses manage their orders, stock, returns, and sales records. You’ll also be using the user-friendly Bootstrap Library and AdminLTE template.
Expect to build two areas, one for the admin and another for general staff. Your admin area will allow admin access to all web app pages, forms, and features, while staff users will have limited access.
Conclusion
PHP is a hugely popular and easy-to-learn scripting language for creating web apps and websites that’s used by giants of the modern tech world, including WordPress, Facebook, Wikipedia, and more.
Whether you’re an aspiring web developer that’s selected PHP as their language of choice or an experienced PHP dev, one of the best ways to boost your skills and enhance your portfolio is to build PHP projects. This is also an excellent learning process for emulating the tasks of a real web developer.
With that said, this article has covered the 13 best PHP projects you need to build in 2023. We’ve even included a range of options with PHP projects for beginners, PHP project ideas for intermediate developers, and advanced PHP projects. So whatever your skill level, there’s a PHP project for you to sink your teeth into!
Applying for developer jobs with PHP? Check out the
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is PHP Good for Large Projects?
Ideal for small PHP projects or the very largest and most complex web apps, PHP can scale to suit the needs of any application, as shown by its adoption by huge tech companies like WordPress, Facebook, and Wikipedia.
There’s also a range of PHP frameworks that can help to scale your PHP web app, like Laravel.
2. Where Can I Download Free PHP Projects?
There are various resources online for downloading free PHP projects with source code, including GitHub, SourceForge, and more.
If you’re looking for new PHP projects, this article has listed 13 of the best PHP projects that are free to use, so depending on your skill level, there’s something for you.
3. What Are Good PHP Projects?
Good PHP project topics simulate a real-world use case, as this helps to show your skills in a relatable way to prospective employers. For example, look at our Chatbot project for beginners, photo editor for intermediate devs, and ad server for advanced PHP developers.
4. How Do I Start a PHP Project?
Look at the list of projects we’ve added to this article. These are based on difficulty level, with options for beginner to advanced PHP coders.
If you’re unsure where you fit on this spectrum, try your hand at a range of projects in each category to find the best fit for your knowledge level. Also, have an IDE ready to work on your project files!
5. Can I do These Projects on a PHP Internship?
Absolutely. All of our options are great PHP projects for students to demonstrate their PHP skills during an internship. Moreover, using these to impress your internship employer can be a great way to secure a permanent position afterward.
6. What Kind of Projects Is PHP Used For?
PHP is most well known for being used by web developers to create interactive websites and web applications. However, it’s also straightforward to embed PHP within HTML, which helps to make static websites more interactive and dynamic. This also extends to full-stack web apps that interact with databases.
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