24 Awesome PHP Libraries Every Developer Should Know

As a PHP developer, there are many useful libraries on GitHub; here are the 24 coolest ones, each with a brief description and example code.

1. Dispatch – Micro‑framework Dispatch is a small PHP framework without a full MVC setup, allowing you to define URL rules and methods for better organization of APIs, simple sites, or prototypes.

include 'dispatch.php';

get('/greet', function () {
    render('greet-form');
});

post('/greet', function () {
    $name = from($_POST, 'name');
    render('greet-show', array('name' => $name));
});

dispatch();

2. Klein – Fast PHP Router Klein is a lightweight routing library for PHP 5.3+, offering concise syntax and support for HTTP method constraints and regular‑expression routes.

respond('/[:name]', function ($request) {
    echo 'Hello ' . $request->name;
});

respond('GET', '/posts', $callback);
respond('POST', '/posts/create', $callback);
respond(array('POST','GET'), $route, $callback);

3. Ham – Cached Router Ham is a lightweight router that caches I/O using XCache or APC for faster performance.

require '../ham/ham.php';

$app = new Ham('example');
$app->config_from_file('settings.php');
$app->route('/pork', function($app) {
    return "Delicious pork.";
});

$hello = function($app, $name='world') {
    return $app->render('hello.html', array('name' => $name));
};
$app->route('/hello/<string>', $hello);
$app->run();

4. Assetic – Asset Management Assetic merges and minifies CSS/JS assets, reducing download size and HTTP requests.

use Assetic\Asset\AssetCollection;
use Assetic\Asset\FileAsset;
use Assetic\Asset\GlobAsset;

$js = new AssetCollection(array(
    new GlobAsset('/path/to/js/*'),
    new FileAsset('/path/to/another.js'),
));

echo $js->dump();

5. ImageWorkshop – Layered Image Manipulation ImageWorkshop lets you work with layered images, resize, crop, watermark, etc.

$norwayLayer = ImageWorkshop::initFromPath('/path/to/images/norway.jpg');
$watermarkLayer = ImageWorkshop::initFromPath('/path/to/images/watermark.png');
$image = $norwayLayer->getResult();
header('Content-type: image/jpeg');
imagejpeg($image, null, 95);
exit;

6. Snappy – Snapshot/PDF Generation Snappy generates snapshots, HTML, and PDFs via wkhtmltopdf.

require_once '/path/to/snappy/src/autoload.php';
use Knp\Snappy\Pdf;

$snappy = new Pdf('/usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf');
header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.pdf"');
echo $snappy->getOutput('http://www.github.com');

7. Idiorm – Lightweight ORM Idiorm provides a simple PDO‑based query builder and ORM.

$user = ORM::for_table('user')
    ->where_equal('username', 'j4mie')
    ->find_one();

$user->first_name = 'Jamie';
$user->save();

$tweets = ORM::for_table('tweet')
    ->select('tweet.*')
    ->join('user', array('user.id', '=', 'tweet.user_id'))
    ->where_equal('user.username', 'j4mie')
    ->find_many();

foreach ($tweets as $tweet) {
    echo $tweet->text;
}

8. Underscore – PHP Utility Belt A PHP port of Underscore.js offering functional helpers.

__::each(array(1, 2, 3), function($num) { echo $num . ','; });
$multiplier = 2;
__::each(array(1, 2, 3), function($num, $index) use ($multiplier) {
    echo $index . '=' . ($num * $multiplier) . ',';
});
__::reduce(array(1, 2, 3), function($memo, $num) { return $memo + $num; }, 0);
__::find(array(1, 2, 3, 4), function($num) { return $num % 2 === 0; });
__::filter(array(1, 2, 3, 4), function($num) { return $num % 2 === 0; });

9. Requests – Simple HTTP Requests A wrapper that simplifies making HTTP requests.

$headers = array('Accept' => 'application/json');
$options = array('auth' => array('user', 'pass'));
$request = Requests::get('https://api.github.com/gists', $headers, $options);
var_dump($request->status_code);
var_dump($request->headers['content-type']);
var_dump($request->body);

10. Buzz – Simple HTTP Client Another lightweight HTTP client library.

$request = new Buzz\Message\Request('HEAD', '/', 'http://google.com');
$response = new Buzz\Message\Response();
$client = new Buzz\Client\FileGetContents();
$client->send($request, $response);

echo $request;
echo $response;

11. Goutte – Web Scraping Goutte provides an elegant API for crawling and extracting data from web pages.

require_once '/path/to/goutte.phar';
use Goutte\Client;

$client = new Client();
$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'http://www.symfony-project.org/');
$link = $crawler->selectLink('Plugins')->link();
$crawler = $client->click($link);
$t = $crawler->filter('#data')->text();
echo "Here is the text: $t";

12. Carbon – DateTime Library Carbon extends PHP's DateTime with a fluent API.

printf("Right now is %s", Carbon::now()->toDateTimeString());
$tomorrow = Carbon::now()->addDay();
$lastWeek = Carbon::now()->subWeek();
$nextSummerOlympics = Carbon::createFromDate(2012)->addYears(4);
if (Carbon::now()->gte($endOfWorld)) { die(); }
if (Carbon::now()->isWeekend()) { echo 'Party!'; }

13. Ubench – Micro Benchmarking Ubench measures execution time and memory usage of PHP code.

use Ubench\Ubench;
$bench = new Ubench;
$bench->start();
// ... code to benchmark ...
$bench->end();
echo $bench->getTime();
echo $bench->getMemoryPeak();

14. Validation – Input Validation Engine Respect\Validation offers a powerful, chainable validation library.

use Respect\Validation\Validator as v;
$number = 123;
v::numeric()->validate($number);
$usernameValidator = v::alnum()->noWhitespace()->length(1,15);
$usernameValidator->validate('alganet');
$user = new stdClass;
$user->name = 'Alexandre';
$user->birthdate = '1987-07-01';
$userValidator = v::attribute('name', v::string()->length(1,32))
    ->attribute('birthdate', v::date()->minimumAge(18));
$userValidator->validate($user);

15. Filterus – Filtering Library Filterus validates and filters strings according to defined patterns.

$f = Filter::factory('string,max:5');
$str = 'This is a test string';
$f->validate($str); // false
$f->filter($str); // 'This '

16. Faker – Fake Data Generator Faker creates realistic fake data for testing.

require_once '/path/to/Faker/src/autoload.php';
$faker = Faker\Factory::create();
echo $faker->name;
echo $faker->address;
echo $faker->text;

17. Mustache.php – Elegant Templating Mustache provides logic‑less templates for PHP.

$m = new Mustache_Engine;
echo $m->render('Hello {{planet}}', array('planet' => 'World!'));

18. Gaufrette – Filesystem Abstraction Gaufrette abstracts local files, FTP, S3, etc., behind a unified API.

use Gaufrette\Filesystem;
use Gaufrette\Adapter\Local as LocalAdapter;
$adapter = new LocalAdapter('/var/media');
$filesystem = new Filesystem($adapter);
$content = $filesystem->read('myFile');
$filesystem->write('myFile', 'Hello I am the new content');

19. Omnipay – Payment Processing Omnipay offers a consistent API for multiple payment gateways.

use Omnipay\GatewayFactory;
$gateway = GatewayFactory::create('Stripe');
$gateway->setApiKey('abc123');
$formData = ['number' => '4111111111111111', 'expiryMonth' => 6, 'expiryYear' => 2016];
$response = $gateway->purchase(['amount' => 1000, 'card' => $formData]);
if ($response->isSuccessful()) { print_r($response); }
elseif ($response->isRedirect()) { $response->redirect(); }
else { exit($response->getMessage()); }

20. Upload – File Upload Handling Upload simplifies file uploads with validation of type and size.

$storage = new \Upload\Storage\FileSystem('/path/to/directory');
$file = new \Upload\File('foo', $storage);
$file->addValidations(array(
    new \Upload\Validation\Mimetype('image/png'),
    new \Upload\Validation\Size('5M')
));
try { $file->upload(); } catch (\Exception $e) { $errors = $file->getErrors(); }

21. HTMLPurifier – HTML XSS Protection HTMLPurifier sanitizes HTML to prevent XSS attacks.

require_once '/path/to/HTMLPurifier.auto.php';
$config = HTMLPurifier_Config::createDefault();
$purifier = new HTMLPurifier($config);
$clean_html = $purifier->purify($dirty_html);

22. ColorJizz‑PHP – Color Manipulation ColorJizz converts between color formats and performs basic color operations.

use MischiefCollective\ColorJizz\Formats\Hex;
$red_hex = new Hex(0xFF0000);
$red_cmyk = $hex->toCMYK();
echo $red_cmyk; // 0,1,1,0
echo Hex::fromString('red')->hue(-20)->greyscale(); // 555555

23. PHP Geo – Geolocation Library PHP Geo calculates high‑precision distances between coordinates.

use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Distance\Vincenty;
$coordinate1 = new Coordinate(19.820664, -155.468066);
$coordinate2 = new Coordinate(20.709722, -156.253333);
$calculator = new Vincenty();
$distance = $calculator->getDistance($coordinate1, $coordinate2);

24. ShellWrap – Elegant Command‑Line Wrapper ShellWrap lets you invoke powerful Linux/Unix commands from PHP.

require 'ShellWrap.php';
use \MrRio\ShellWrap as sh;

echo sh::ls();
sh::git('checkout', 'master');

echo sh::grep('html', sh::curl('http://example.com', array('location' => true)));
sh::touch('file.html');
sh::rm('file.html');
try { sh::rm('file.html'); } catch (Exception $e) { echo 'Caught failing sh::rm() call'; }

These libraries, sourced from the original tutorialzine article and translated by Jobbole, provide a solid toolbox for PHP developers to accelerate development, improve code quality, and handle common tasks efficiently.