Quickly Set Up Yii3: Environment, Installation, and Development Server Guide

Overview

Yii3 is the latest generation of the Yii framework, built for high‑performance, secure, and modern PHP applications. It provides a clean code structure, powerful dependency injection, and built‑in ORM support.

Environment Requirements

PHP version : 8.0 or higher (8.4+ recommended) to use attributes, union types, and JIT compilation.

Composer : latest stable release for dependency management.

Web server : Apache 2.4+, Nginx 1.18+, or PHP’s built‑in server with URL‑rewrite support.

Extensions : PDO, OpenSSL, JSON and other core extensions required by the requirements tool.

Project Creation and Installation

1. Prepare Composer

Install Composer (Linux/macOS):

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Windows: run Composer‑Setup.exe and then update:

composer self-update

2. Create a New Project

Run the following command in the web‑root directory:

composer create-project yiisoft/app --prefer-dist your_project_name

--prefer-dist

downloads a pre‑compiled zip for faster installation. your_project_name is the folder name for the project (e.g., yii3). --stability=dev can be added to test the latest development features; avoid in production.

The command fetches Yii3 core, templates, and dependencies (≈50‑100 MB) and creates a structure containing app/, config/, and public/ directories.

3. Start the Development Server

Enter the project directory and run:

cd yii3
APP_ENV=dev ./yii serve --port=8488 0.0.0.0

Default URL: http://localhost:8488 Custom port: ./yii serve --port=YOUR_PORT Docker container: ./yii serve 0.0.0.0 Successful startup prints server configuration and can be stopped with CTRL‑C. Open http://127.0.0.1:8488/ in a browser to see the Yii3 welcome page.

For further details, refer to the official documentation at https://yii3.netlify.app/.