Hi everyone,
If it's news and updates about php then you will find it here weekly. Last week we posted a blog from Kinsta of a comprehensive set of PHP 8.5 performance benchmarks covering popular CMSs and frameworks, including Laravel. This week we're posting a Laravel-focused test suite from Sevalla to provide clearer context around how Laravel behaves across PHP 8.2 through 8.5 under both lightweight and more involved request paths. We also have other articles on What We Know About Laravel 13, and Why Fat Models Hurt Laravel Projects More Than You Think. In Tutorials we have guides on Dispatching Audit Logs Asynchronously, How to Build a Multi-Step Lead Capture Plugin in WordPress with Google Sheets Integration, and MongoDB Vector Search in Laravel, Finally in our Reading section we have articles on Enhancing Application Security and Reliability Through Proactive Code Review, Mastering Symfony Rate Limiting, and Is Web Development Quietly Returning to PHP?
We have all that and more, so we do hope you enjoy this week's newsletter. If you have an article, tutorial or podcast that you would like to be featured in our newsletter, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].
All the best,
Adrian
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Articles
What We Know About Laravel 13
Laravel 13 is the next major release of the Laravel framework, scheduled for March 2026. This release will require PHP 8.3 as the minimum version and will follow Laravel's standard support cycle with bug fixes through Q3 2027 and security updates through Q1 2028.
Awesome Laravel & Filament: The Ultimate Curated Resource List — And We Need Your Help!
TL;DR: I've built awesome-laravel — a curated list of the best Laravel and Filament resources, packages, tools, tutorials, starter kits, and community links. It's open for contributions.
PHP Code Structuring: Building Castles, Not Card Houses
When it comes to writing PHP code, it’s easy to get caught up in the thrill of solving problems and building amazing web applications. However, what separates a professional developer from an amateur is not just the ability to write code but the art of structuring it effectively.
Why Fat Models Hurt Laravel Projects More Than You Think
When building Laravel applications, Eloquent models are often the go-to place for logic. They’re convenient. They have access to everything. They seem like the right home for behavior.
Laravel for Beginners: Easy Explanation You Can Understand
If the word Laravel sounds confusing or intimidating, take a deep breath, you are not alone. Many beginners feel the same way when they first hear about it. The good news? Laravel is actually designed to make things easier, not harder. This guide is written especially for beginners who want a clear, friendly, and stress-free explanation.
Secure Like a Pro: 10 Advanced Techniques in Symfony
The Symfony Security component is often underestimated, treated merely as a “login gate.” In reality, it is a sophisticated authorization framework capable of handling complex state machines, hierarchical permissions and stateless authentication flow.
Laravel performance benchmarks — PHP 8.2 vs 8.3 vs 8.4 vs 8.5
Last month, Kinsta (the parent company of Sevalla) published a comprehensive set of PHP 8.5 performance benchmarks covering popular CMSs and frameworks, including Laravel.
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Tutorials and Talks
MongoDB Vector Search in Laravel: Finding the Unqueryable
Simple, keyword-based database queries are often inadequate for user searches because they struggle with complexities such as synonyms, slang, and relevance judgments.
Dispatching Audit Logs Asynchronously for Maximum Performance
Audit logging is the backbone of any enterprise application. Whether you are building a healthcare portal, a fintech app, or an internal CRM where tracking "who did what and when" is legally mandated, audit logs are non-negotiable.
Laravel AI SDK Tutorial Part 2: Build a RAG-Powered Support Bot with Tools and Memory
In Part 1 of this series, we built a document analyzer. It took text, returned structured output, and streamed the response. Useful, but honestly? Pretty basic. The agent couldn't remember who it was talking to. It couldn't look things up. It couldn't search your data for answers.
How to Build a Multi-Step Lead Capture Plugin in WordPress with Google Sheets Integration (Bricks Builder Guide)
Building a WordPress multi-step lead capture plugin with Google Sheets integration is one of the most powerful ways to generate high-quality leads directly from your blog posts.
Enhancing LinkedIn Banner Image Generation with Technology Badges
This post explores how to enhance the automatic generation of LinkedIn banner images by including technology badges and a portfolio URL. This provides a richer, more informative visual representation for professional profiles.
How to Fix Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time Error in WordPress
Here is how you can resolve this error on your WordPress website. This is the same approach I now use after several attempts to fix this type of error, and it works every time.
How to Fix “Blocked by CORS Policy” Error in JavaScript (Step-by-Step Guide)
How to Fix “Blocked by CORS Policy” Error in JavaScript (Step-by-Step Guide) If you are building a web application and see this error in your browser
console: Access to fetch at 'https://api.example.com' from origin 'http://localhost:3000'
has been blocked by CORS policy.
How to Fix the "Elementor Content Area Not Found" Error: A PHP Developer's Deep Dive
This guide provides the technical solutions to bridge the gap between your custom code and the editor.
Singleton Design Pattern in PHP (Beginner-Friendly Guide)
Singleton is a creational design pattern that ensures only one object of its kind exists and provides a single point of access to it for any other code.
Writing Python in a PHP Way — Why It’s a Mistake (and When It’s Actually Fine).
If you’ve ever joined a team migrating from PHP to Python, chances are you’ve seen this pattern before:
the new Python backend looks… oddly familiar. |
News and Announcements
Factory makeMany() Method in Laravel 12.52.0
Laravel v12.52.0 adds a makeMany() factory method, new withoutAfterMaking() and withoutAfterCreating() factory helpers, atomic writes in the Blade compiler to prevent race conditions, and improved exception traces for closures and standalone functions.
"The Vibes" — NativePHP Hosts a Day 3 after Laracon US
The Vibes is a new, community-powered gathering taking place on Thursday, July 30, 2026 — the day after Laracon US wraps in Boston. Organized by the NativePHP team, it's an intimate, single-day event limited to just 100 developers.
Laravel Cloud Adds “Markdown for Agents” to Serve AI-Friendly Content
Laravel Cloud has introduced Markdown for Agents, a feature that allows your application to serve a Markdown version of a page when requested by AI agents instead of the traditional HTML response.
SymfonyLive Berlin 2026 Schedule is out… and more talks are coming!
The schedule is now online — and more talks are coming soon! The full schedule for SymfonyLive Berlin 2026 is now available, and we’ll be announcing the final talks very soon.
February 16–22, 2026 - A Week of Symfony #999
This week, development activity focused on misc fixes and improvements across all maintained Symfony branches. In addition, we published more information about the SymfonyLive Berlin 2026 and SymfonyLive Paris 2026 conferences.
Laravel Live Denmark Returns to Copenhagen in August 2026
20–21, 2026, in Copenhagen. The event brings together more than 300 Laravel and PHP developers for two focused days of technical talks, networking, and community connection.
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Podcasts and Vlogs
The Stack Overflow: Dogfood so nutritious it’s building the future of SDLCs
Ryan welcomes Thibault Sottiaux, OpenAI’s engineering lead on Codex, to discuss how the Codex team dogfoods Codex to build Codex, what distinguishes an agentic coding tool from a chat-based code assistant, and why they’re focusing on a safe and secure agentic SDLC rather than just code generation.
North Meets South Podcast: Charging chaos, corona discharge, and vector embeddings
Michael and Jake discuss Jake's device charging chaos, household optimisation, international power outlets, and vector embeddings.
Software Engineering Radio: SE Radio 708: Jens Gustedt on C in 2026
Jens Gustedt, author of Modern C, senior scientist at the French National Institute for Computer Science and Control (INRIA), deputy director of the ICube lab, and former co-editor of the ISO C standard, speaks with SE Radio host Gavin Henry about the past 5 years in C, C2Y, and C23.
Shoptalk Show: Ujjwal Sharma and TC39
We're joined by Ujjwal Sharma to talk about what the TC39 is, who's in it, and how the TC39 group guides JavaScript.
PHP Architect: Community Corner: The Activated Leader with Lilah Jones
In this episode, Scott talks with Lilah Jones about the Activated Leader, how it can help navigate change, and her keynote at #phptek 2026.
Mostly Technical: 121: Let Ian Cook
Ian and Aaron discuss Ian shipping (!) the HelpSpot website and cooking on Outro, Aaron's complete overhaul of Solo, why it's nice to have a wife, and so much more.
Syntax: Browsers Are Finally Catching Up (Interop 2026)
Scott and Wes unpack Interop 2026 and the browser features finally aligning across engines, from container style queries and anchor positioning to scroll-driven animations and view transitions.
The Changelog: The mythical agent-month
Wes McKinney on the mythical agent-month, install Peon Ping to employ a Peon today, Andreas Kling explains why Ladybird is adopting Rust, Cloudflare has a new MCP server that’s quite efficient, and Elliot Bonneville thinks the only moat left is money.
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How a Silent API Update Broke Our Billing (And How to Prevent It)
It was 11 PM on a Friday when the alerts started. Orders were failing. By the time I opened my laptop, 23 customers had seen an error screen and abandoned their carts. I spent two hours blaming our own code. I checked every recent deployment and rolled back twice.
Laravel Notifications in Practice: Mail, Database, Queues, and Clean Testing
Notifications look simple at first—until your app grows. You start by sending a quick email from a controller, but soon you need more: Email and in-app notifications. Different channels depending on user preferences. Queued delivery so the UI stays fast. Clean tests that don't actually hit your SMTP server.
Enhancing Application Security and Reliability Through Proactive Code Review
In software development, maintaining application security and reliability is paramount. Addressing vulnerabilities and ensuring code robustness are ongoing challenges.
Symfony + FrankenPHP: A Modern Stack for Developer Tools
PHP is boring. That's exactly why we chose it. When we set out to build 19 developer utility websites, we needed a stack that was fast to develop with, easy to deploy, and wouldn't give us surprises at 3 AM. Symfony + FrankenPHP turned out to be the perfect combination.
PHP LOGIN SECURITY — “Things I Must Never Forget”
When I create a session, I am creating a digital identity. If someone steals that session, they become the user.
Mastering Symfony Rate Limiting: Compound Limits done right
If you run anything exposed to the internet like an API, a SaaS backend, even a “simple” contact form, you will get abused. Not maybe. Not one day. You will.
Is Web Development Quietly Returning to PHP?
For years, the web development industry framed progress as a clean break from the past. PHP belonged to the “old web.” JavaScript frameworks represented the future. Frontend and backend were separated. APIs were mandatory. Single-page applications were the standard.
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Interesting Projects, Tools and Libraries
laminas/laminas-i18n
Provide translations for your application, and filter and validate internationalized values.
knplabs/gaufrette
PHP library that provides a filesystem abstraction layer.
sabre/event
sabre/event is a library for lightweight event-based programming.
wp-cli/mustangostang-spyc
A simple YAML loader/dumper class for PHP (WP-CLI fork).
symfony/ux-icons
Renders local and remote SVG icons in your Twig templates.
ondrejmirtes/composer-attribute-collector
A convenient and near zero-cost way to retrieve targets of PHP 8 attributes.
beyondcode/laravel-dump-server
Symfony Var-Dump Server for Laravel.
ondrejmirtes/php-merge
A PHP merge utility using the Diff php library or the command line git.
yiisoft/yii2-composer
The composer plugin for Yii extension installer.
spatie/laravel-webhook-client
Receive webhooks in Laravel apps.
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Jobs
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