PHP On Google App Engine Now Generally Available

PHP is now in preview on Google App Engine, fully available to the general public. The preview status means that it is no longer necessary for developers to whitelist their applications for deployment.

Google launched PHP, its fourth run-time language, at Google I/O earlier this year. One of the world’s most popular programming languages, PHP, is at the heart of such services as Facebook, WordPress and Drupal.

Since introducing PHP, Google has developed a number of new features, such as a plug-in for WordPress on Google App Engine and the ability to read and write files from PHP.

Developers may develop, test and deploy apps through Google’s App Engine PHP application. Developers can also create, test and deploy projects from DevTable or CodeEnvy, both integrated developer environments. Developers that use their desktop can build, run, debug, and deploy Google App Engine PHP applications from within JetBrain’s PHPStorm IDE.

When launched at Google I/O, the PHP runtime was the top-requested feature with customers. That makes this update an important one for developers using the Google App Engine platform.

According to Web Technology Surveys, PHP is used by 81.2% of all websites. But websites are changing and far more focused on mobile and the cloud. That’s evident this week at the Zend PHP Conference, where there is an emphasis on building out APIs, dynamic, mobile backends and applications that run entirely in the cloud.

Other PaaS environments that offer PHP support include Zend’s PHP Cloud, Jelastic and EngineYard.