JetBrains launches new open source funding round for PHP projects

The Czech tool manufacturer JetBrains is expanding its commitment to the PHP community and has announced a new structure for the promotion of open-source projects. In addition to the continuous further development of the PhpStorm development environment (IDE) and support for the PHP Foundation, the company intends to provide financial support for five open-source projects or maintainers each year.

4 out of 5 places already allocated

JetBrains has already allocated four sponsorship places for the year 2025/2026:

• Saif Eddin Gmati is developing Mago, a new linter and static analyser for PHP written in Rust.
• Markus Staab is involved in numerous projects, such as PHPStan, Rector, and PHPUnit.
• Kyrian Obikwelu researches AI and MCP applications in the PHP environment.
• Sjon Hortensius runs 3v4l.org, an online shell that is widely used in the PHP community.

A fifth place is still open: the community is invited to suggest suitable people or projects. More information on the procedure can be found in the article on the JetBrains blog.

heise conference on PHP

On 25 November, betterCode() PHP will take place, an online conference organised by iX and dpunkt.verlag in cooperation with thePHP.cc. Interested parties can find out more about the programming language in presentations and discussion rounds. Discounted tickets at the early bird rate are available via the conference website.

JetBrains supports PHP Foundation

As part of this new, annually changing funding strategy, JetBrains is ending its support for two long-standing projects: Xdebug by Derick Rethans and CodeSniffer by Juliette Reinders Folmer. The company emphasizes that this is not for reasons of content but to make room for new projects that will also benefit from the funding.

JetBrains is calling on other companies and developers to also contribute financially to open-source funding: “We believe in the power of open source. Let's make PHP even better together.”

(mdo)