Should I implement my own Chat feature (with libsodium) ?

I'm working on a fiverr-like website and contemplating weither or not I should implement a chat feature to simplify communication between freelancers and client.

The interface and web-socket is already set-up, however I'd also like to garantee maximum security/privacy through message encryption, something I know is better done by true professionals.

If I do implement it myself however, I intend on making it extremely limited. It won't be accessible unless there is an active job ongoing, and it won't have any fancy features like vocal message, image uploading or even emojis for that matter, as it's meant to be used strictly to professional ends for now. Users should't have any particular reason to share personal infos and I intend on encouraging them not to.

I've thought about using a third-party bundle as it's clearly the lightest, safest route, but right now the available options (TalkJs, CometChat, ect..) are simply too pricy for me, especially considering how most of it seems to justify itself with a lot of unneeded features.

So my question is : Is my farely basic knowledge of libsodium enough for a light, limited chat feature until I can afford something better or should I skip on it altogether ?

If not implemented there's ways for me to work-around it but I'm afraid users might find the process too steep and get turned off from the plateform as a result.

FYI I'm mostly working with Symfony.

https://redd.it/1mdyds5
@r_php

One Year of PHP at Scale: Reflections on Community, Research, and Impact

In five days, my newsletter, PHP at Scale, will mark its first year of publication. Reflecting on this milestone, I’ve been considering what creating this newsletter has brought to my work and the PHP community. Here’s my sum up:

* Reddit Discussions: This one is unexpected to me, as I have never used Reddit prior to my newsletter, and was suggested by a colleague that it might be a good place to share my newsletter and insights. Yet the conversation about it here has been the most significant benefit. Your insights and debates have directly inspired some newsletter editions or ideas.
* Research: Second most valuable thing I would say is research. Preparing each issue requires extensive research. This process consistently adds some interesting details my understanding, much like preparing for a technical presentation.
* Newsletter itself: While it’s encouraging to see the number of subscribers and views grow, the newsletter itself hasn’t yet delivered substantial value beyond that metric. I value knowing readers engage with the content, but I’m still seeking deeper interactions or outcomes from it.

I’m interested in your perspectives on creating or engaging with technical content, whether newsletters, blogs, or community discussions. What motivates you to contribute or follow such resources? If you produce content, how do you select topics that resonate? I remain committed to crafting each issue manually, prioritizing authenticity over automated tools, and I’d appreciate your thoughts on this approach or suggestions for future topics.

You can explore my latest insights on scaling PHP applications here: [https://phpatscale.substack.com/p/php-at-scale-11](https://phpatscale.substack.com/p/php-at-scale-11)

https://redd.it/1mdz7lz
@r_php

Symfony 7.2.9 released
https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-7-2-9-released?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Symfony%20Blog%20Feed

https://redd.it/1mdzgol
@r_php

Symfony 7.3.2 released
https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-7-3-2-released?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Symfony%20Blog%20Feed

https://redd.it/1mdzgoz
@r_php

Symfony 6.4.24 released
https://symfony.com/blog/symfony-6-4-24-released?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Symfony%20Blog%20Feed

https://redd.it/1mdzgoa
@r_php

Global Factory Settings, Better Column Checks & Container Attributes in Laravel 12.21
https://youtu.be/LBadXhqdj1c

https://redd.it/1mdz4en
@r_php

Multiple Ways to Get Your Domain Name (Host) in Laravel
https://nabilhassen.com/7-ways-to-get-your-domain-name-host-in-laravel

https://redd.it/1meadyo
@r_php

Nightwatch has been out for a while, what are your thoughts?

I gave Nightwatch a try for about a month but I eventually moved back to Sentry, the number one reason being the cost. Sentry has stuff I need, like logging and at a much more reasonable price.

I'm not sure what the target audience is for Nightwatch, I use Laravel daily but I felt like it wasn't a good deal compared to other offerings available.

If you're still using Nightwatch, or have used it and switched, why? What are your thoughts on the product?

https://redd.it/1meb5ya
@r_php

Blaze by Caleb Porzio for blade components speed looks awesome and not just for Livewire
https://youtu.be/GM0glP77tsA?t=20371

https://redd.it/1medlta
@r_php

Asynchronous server vs Coroutine style server in swoole.

I wanted to try and test the basics of Swoole. While reading the documentation on its official site, I noticed there are two ways to write a Swoole HTTP server:

1. Asynchronous server

use Swoole\Http\Server
$http = new Server("127.0.0.1", 9501);
$http->on('request', function ($request, $response) {
$response->end("<h1>Hello Swoole. #".rand(1000, 9999)."</h1>");
});
$http->start();

2. Coroutine style

use Swoole\Coroutine\Http\Server;
use function Swoole\Coroutine\run;
run(function () {
$server = new Server('127.0.0.1', 9502, false);
$server->handle('/', function ($request, $response) {
$response->end("<h1>Index</h1>");
});
$server->handle('/test', function ($request, $response) {
$response->end("<h1>Test</h1>");
});
$server->handle('/stop', function ($request, $response) use ($server) {
$response->end("<h1>Stop</h1>");
$server->shutdown();
});
$server->start();
});

It looks like the asynchronous style is more popular and widely used. However, I wanted to know the differences, challenges, and performance comparisons between these two approaches.

Has anyone tried both methods and found which one is better or more suitable for a large application in production?

https://redd.it/1mepltl
@r_php

Why I don't use down migrations
https://freek.dev/2900-why-i-dont-use-down-migrations

https://redd.it/1merkrc
@r_php

Comprehensive analysis of the entire Packagist.org packages as of 2025-07-31 related to package size

Hi. I run the Bettergist Collector which creates the Packagist Archive now three times a week. As of July 30th, 2025, I can give you the following stats:

Of 430,678 packages in packagist.org since 2019-04-29 when the packagist archive started, 406,404 packages are stored in the Bettergist archive. 24,274 packages (0.56%) have been lost forever (or possibly can be found in the 2020 archive).

Of these, 395,678 packages were archived via packagist.org on 2024-07-31. 406,404 in 2025-07-31.

20,109 new composer projects since 2025-01-01, and 39,746 created since 2024-07-31. 422,860 projects are listed in packagist.org, so 37,908 packages have been deleted or lost since 2024-07-31 (subtract 10,726 new packages from 27,182 lost packages as of 2024-07-31), or 8.97%.

99.5% of all packages are 50.56 MB or less. This represents an increase of 2.38 MB since 2024-07-31 (4.94%).

The top 1% of largest packages use 137.34 MB or more (450 packages).

The total disk space of the Bettergist Archive: 645,798 MB, of which the Biggest 1% use up 138,625 MB (21.4%). The Biggest 5% (2,246 projects) use up 280,044 MB (43.35%) and this is why they are (mostly) excluded from the Bootstrap A Dead World USBs which are hiidden all over the world.

In the Top 1,000 most-stared projects, 50 are bigger than the 50 MB cut off and are included anyway. These 50 projects take up 7,317 MB (~7.3 GB) and have an average disk space of 146 MB and a median of 125 MB.

The biggest packages:

1. acosf/archersys - 8.65 GB - 4 installs - 3 github stars
2. inpsyde/gutenberg-versions-mirror - 6.58 GB - 126 installs - 0 stars
3. robiningelbrecht/wca-rest-api - 5.24 GB - 0 installs - 20 stars
4. khandieyea/nzsdf - 2.82 GB - 1004 installs - 1 star
5. srapsware/domaindumper - 2.34 GB - 15 installs - 21 stars

There are 12 packages using more than 1 GB, and they collectively use 35.84 GB. Of these, 6 have 0 github stars, 8 have less than 3 stars, and none of them have more than 64 stars. They have very low install rates, a median of 12 composer installs.

68 projects have more than 10,000 classes. Of these, the top 10 are:

| Package | Classes | Methods | Disk Space |
|---------|---------|---------|------------|
| sunaoka/aws-sdk-php-structures | 95,819 | 79,408 | 400,272 |
| microsoft/microsoft-graph-beta | 59,836 | 246,571 | 417,352 |
| tencentcloud/tencentcloud-sdk-php | 36,183 | 72,398 | 209,216 |
| datadog/dd-trace | 34,824 | 190,018 | 778,348 |
| microsoft/microsoft-graph | 34,436 | 135,560 | 232,672 |
| inpsyde/wp-stubs | 33,720 | 349,713 | 307,028 |
| udemy/googleads-php-lib | 32,540 | 104,360 | 43,400 |
| acosf/archersys | 31,344 | 235,313 | 8,649,176 |
| cmutter/google-adwords-api | 30,692 | 98,584 | 43,228 |
| huaweicloud/huaweicloud-sdk-php | 29,836 | 681,364 | 411,420 |

Not sure what else to report based on size...

https://redd.it/1mf1hya
@r_php

I made a community survey to spotlight influential people in PHP
https://forms.gle/vqjc4RpwpgyLjYbQ7

https://redd.it/1mf2n4d
@r_php

"Vibe coding" a visual email editor with AI, Laravel & Vue
https://youtu.be/qsTb9Y99qcQ

https://redd.it/1mf4jc5
@r_php

Prefetching images with Inertia.js
https://youtu.be/gFiFS0XRpTE

https://redd.it/1mf748v
@r_php

Mailpit: Simple Local Email Testing for Laravel

Mailpit is a local SMTP server that lets you preview Laravel emails in the browser without actually sending them. Perfect for safe email testing during development.

https://laravel-hub.com/blog/mailpit-simple-local-email-testing-for-laravel

https://redd.it/1mfbolg
@r_php

Anyone else feel like PHP is a piece of....

...

A piece of their life?

I have been coding in PHP for 25 years.

I used it in the beginning to extract data from a ROM file for a video game to put together a strategy guide and GameShark cheat codes. Using unpack, bin2hex, and simple file ops. It was sweet and forgiving. I didn't get bogged down with compilers and typing as a teenager.

Now older. I own a home and have a family, that I know is partly because of a long career doing PHP.

Anyone else feel like PHP is a piece of.... their life?

https://redd.it/1mfhnuo
@r_php

How and why?

Recently I looked at Laravel channels, and found out that PHP does not look like previously. Those 7/8+ versions made PHP at a new level.

But to the point.

I think about building chat AI bot, but wile doing some research with perplexity or other AI thing it turns out that Laravel could not handle 10k concurrent users. I know that I will never hit even 10 users, but the main reason to create this kind of application is not only about php, but about using stack which could handle the requirements.

What do you guys think about those 10k concurrent users? Does perplexity lies to me?

Advice needed 😇

https://redd.it/1mfk2i8
@r_php

A Week of Symfony #970 (July 28 – August 3, 2025)
https://symfony.com/blog/a-week-of-symfony-970-july-28-august-3-2025?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Symfony%20Blog%20Feed

https://redd.it/1mgehi1
@r_php

SWF parser and extractor in PHP

Hi !

Have you ever dream about rendering SWF sprites with PHP ? I think not, but it's possible now.

This library / noscript parse and render SWF sprites and shapes as SVG using only PHP, without need of any dependencies nor external tool like FFDec. So, it result on a really lightweight tool with really negligible startup time.

Its features are (for now):

* Low level parsing of SWF tags structures
* Render shape, sprites, and movieclip as SVG (one SVG per frame)
* Convert SVG to raster image (animated or not) using Imagick
* Extract raster images using GD
* Extract AS2 simple variables as array or JSON (equivalent of \`LoadVars\` in AS2)

And for the performance (thanks JIT) :

* 300ms for sprite rendering with cold start
* 19s for render 693 sprites (\~27ms/sprite)

For comparison, FFDec can only handle one SWF at a time, so with the full start of the JVM each time, it takes about 1s per sprite. Who say that PHP is slow ?

Here the link: [https://github.com/Arakne/ArakneSwf](https://github.com/Arakne/ArakneSwf)

https://redd.it/1mgg1hf
@r_php

Interesting/difficult/funny/complicated topics for a newbie?

Hi, I'm starting new with symfony,
And I like to get an idea of which are the most interesting things but also the more annoying things as well.
To give you a bit of context I'm a seasoned php dev with years of OOP, I've used extbase which is very similar on the surface to symfony, I was able to create a new app in symfony 7 in few hours including the time to watch a 1h introduction video. I had no issues with controllers, routes, repositories and really enjoyed the console to kickstart crud and generated migrations.
Now that I've boosted my confidence I'm preparing myself for the issues and struggling that usually I expect after the first train.

Can you suggest me which problematic topics (or just interesting) should I jump into?

https://redd.it/1mgfsn2
@r_php