Notice: Over the next few months, we're reorganizing the App Engine documentation site to make it easier to find content and better align with the rest of Google Cloud products. The same content will be available, but the navigation will now match the rest of the Cloud products. If you have feedback or questions as you navigate the site, click Send Feedback.

PHP on Google App Engine

Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
App Engine offers you a choice between two PHP language environments. Both environments have the same code-centric developer workflow, scale quickly and efficiently to handle increasing demand, and enable you to use Google’s proven serving technology to build your web, mobile and IoT applications quickly and with minimal operational overhead. While the two environments have a lot in common, they differ in a few important ways.

Choose your preferred environment

Standard environment

  • The PHP 7/8 runtimes are capable of running any framework, library, or binary.

  • The PHP 5 runtime does not allow native code, filesystem access, or arbitrary network connections, and has proprietary APIs.

  • Optimized to scale nearly instantaneously to handle huge traffic spikes.

  • Free tier.

PHP 7/8 docs| PHP 5 docs

Flexible environment

  • Open source runtimes capable of running any framework, library, or binary.

  • Greater CPU and memory instance types.

  • Can access resources in the same Compute Engine network.

  • PHP 7.2, 7.3

  • No free tier. Application always has a minimum number of running instances. Most cost-effective for applications that serve traffic continuously.

View docs

Choosing an environment

You can run an App Engine application in two environments, the standard environment and the flexible environment. See a summary of differences between the two environments.
Learn more