Phalcon

Phalcon

Phalcon 730,690 (github.com/phalcon/cphalcon (https://github.com/phalcon/cphalcon 10,821 ), BSD-3-Clause) is a full-stack framework (ORM, Volt templates, DI container, micro mode) written in Zephir, a PHP-like language compiled to C, and shipped as a PHP extension: its classes live inside PHP, so there is no vendor/ to load on each request. 5.22.0 was released on 22 September 2026. The docs state a PHP 8.1 floor, and the release carries prebuilt binaries for PHP 8.1 to 8.5 on Linux, macOS and Windows; the Ubuntu 225 x64 PHP 8.5 build loaded into this server's PHP 8.5.4 unchanged:

A Phalcon micro application, with no Composer at allPHP

<?php
use Phalcon\Di\FactoryDefault;
use Phalcon\Mvc\Micro;
use Phalcon\Support\Version;
$app = new Micro(new FactoryDefault());
$app->get('/hello', function () use ($app) {
    return $app->response
        ->setContentType('text/plain')
        ->setContent('Hello, bookshop, from Phalcon ' . (new Version())->get() . "\n");
});
$app->handle($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);

The speed is real (A Side-by-Side Comparison), and so is the cost. The binary must match your PHP minor version and thread-safety build, so each PHP upgrade waits for Phalcon; the .so is 65 MB; and installing it needs a system package (Ondřej Surý's PPA ships php-phalcon5), PIE (Phalcon's docs call PECL deprecated) or root, which shared hosts refuse. Choose it only on servers you control.

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