We all know and love PHP as one of the longest-standing and most reliable languages for building powerful websites.
However, not everything is bright and sunny with PHP as PHP developers always faced issues when it came to the world of desktop application development that often required them to learn a whole new set of languages.
Mobile application development was unthinkable and just too complicated and definitely not native.
If you had to build a desktop or mobile app with PHP then you needed everything from Java to C++ and much more and not to mention the steep learning curve that came with adapting new languages and frameworks.
Later on when frameworks such as Electron and ReactNative came into the picture, they allowed JavaScript developers to build mobile and desktop applications with JavaScript. Now PHP is basically fulfilling that role.
Today we are going to talk about something that completely solves that issue and serves as a bridge between PHP development and native mobile and desktop applications so that you can get the best of both worlds without having to learn something new.
We are of course talking about NativePHP.
Today we will learn everything there is to NativePHP and help you understand how something like this can immensely benefit a PHP developer when it comes to building desktop applications and how it completely transforms the capabilities of PHP developers when it comes to native applications.
In order to do that, we need to first understand what is NativePHP so let’s start with that.
What is NativePHP?
NativePHP is a dream come true for PHP developers because it is an open-source framework that has been specifically designed to build native PHP apps for desktop and mobile applications.
This framework allows you to utilise a language that you already know as a PHP developer and lets you build on top of Laravel as it integrates very well with some of the most popular UI toolkits such as Tauri and Electron.
NativePHP is evolutionary because it allows you to build very functional cross-platform applications that can even guarantee native-like performance while you are utilising PHP for your logic and the development community has been excited about this since it was announced in 2023 by Marcel Pociot (co-founder of Beyond Code).
NativePHP comes with a unique set of features that include these for desktop:
– Window Management
– Clipboard (native copy and paste)
– Menu Bar Management
– Broadcasting
– Shortcuts (Hotkeys)
– Application Menu
– Database Support (SQLite)
– Native Notification
– Dialogue box
– File Management
And for mobile:
– Cross-platform mobile support (Android and iOS)
– Access to device features like camera, geolocation, and file system
– SQLite database support for local storage
– Push notifications integration
– Touch and gesture support
– Native mobile dialogs and alerts
– Hot reloading during development for faster testing
– Webview-based UI rendering compatible with mobile
– Integration with Capacitor or similar tools for native bridges
– Support for offline-first mobile applications
How Does NativePHP Work?
Laravel at the Core
NativePHP primarily becomes a bridge between the PHP backend and the native system interface and that is why NativePHP apps are structured as Laravel projects. This means that you can expect every benefit of Laravel right in this framework whether it is routing, Eloquent ORM, artisan CLI, etc.
Frontend via HTML/CSS/JS
NativePHP utilises Tauri enabling you to build GUIs using HTML/CSS/JS and this is just like in web development where you design the UX with web technologies.
NativePHP leverages Tauri for building native desktop shells while communicating with the PHP process in the background.
System Integration
NativePHP lets you utilise APIs when it comes to interacting with the host system such as clipboard manipulation as well as menus and system tray and even Windows control. Apart from that you can also expect a very comprehensive file system access and even notification APIs.
Packaging and Distribution
The packaging and distribution are also very straightforward forward and just like any other native application when your app is ready you can then compile it into a desktop app or an app for other operating systems such as MacOS or Linux. It will act as a standalone app and you will also compile it as a standalone app.
Something Big at Laracon – NativePHP Mobile Debut
NativePHP is not just about creating desktop applications and that is exactly what was proven at Laracon EU.
On February 3-4, at the Laravel Laracon 2025 EU, Simon Hamp presented a working demo of NativePHP for iOS during his session “Building Mobile Apps with PHP”.
He basically demonstrated a full Laravel app compiled and running natively on iOS.
And guess with no intermediary JS or web-server. nut instead embedded PHP speaking directly to Swift .
A few weeks after that, the Android support was announced.
This made NativePHP turn heads all over the industry as true cross-platform mobile solution.
Why does this matter so much?
PHP on Mobile—Truly Native
Unlike hybrid approaches such as the solutions like Cordova and even Electron NativePHP embeds PHP through a C extension inside Swift/Android.
This means direct access to device APIs like camera, notifications, flashlight, biometric auth, deep links, and toasts. No hybrid shenanigans here.
Reuse Your Laravel Expertise
If you are a developer already skilled in Laravel then you can now utilise that existing set of skills in Blade, Eloquent, Livewire, Inertia to build production-ready mobile apps.
This basically democratizes native app development for PHP developers.
No Need For New Languages
With NativePHP you can forg learning Swift or Kotlin, Dart or even JavaScript frameworks because everything can be orchestrated in PHP if you know it.
This significantly lowers the barrier to entry and just makes it a favourite for beginners.
Industry & Community Excitement
The reaction over the mobile support launch has been very positive and for good reason.
Almost all the sessions were widely attended, and Laravel news outlets definitely picked it up as a major announcement .
Even popular podcasts such as “Over Engineered” talked in detail about it and that helped a lot.
Shift Toward Unified Stack
There is this revolutionary concept called the unified stack where the same PHP/Laravel stack can span from server to desktop to mobile.
This kind of promising cohesive architecture and faster development cycles for full-stack PHP teams is going to transform app development as we know it.
Getting Started with NativePHP for Desktop – A Brief Guide
Before you start doing anything with it you need to make sure you have installed PHP and we recommend a version higher than 8.1. Apart from that you also need to have composer in place along with Node.js & npm. Additional requirements are going to be Git as well as an operating system that supports it, macOS, Windows, or Linux.
Install Laravel
The very first thing we would recommend you is to install Laravel on your system.
Install NativePHP CLI Globally
After you do that, you need to install NativePHP CLI by simply following the instructions on the official native PHP website or GitHub repo for the CLI tool. This basically helps scaffold and run NativePHP apps.
composer global require nativephp/cli
Once you do that you need to make sure the global composer bin directory is in your system’s path and if you want to check that you can do this:
composer global config bin-dir –absolute
After which you can finally confirm the installation:
nativephp –version
Create a Native App
After which you will be able to create a project using NativePHP CLI.
nativephp new my-first-app
cd my-first-app
When you are setting things up you are going to be asked if you want to create a Laravel-based NativePHP app with choices between Laravel or a plain PHP app.
We would recommend you choose a well because you are going to get all the benefits of it such as routing and database ORM as well as complete MVC support etc.
Install Dependencies
After you have created the app you need to do this.
composer install
npm install && npm run build
What this is going to do is it will install PHP dependencies and compile frontend assets which is very important. Another thing to note is that NativePHP uses Vite for building assets and that is why it is so fast
Run the App
Now it is time to run the app and you can do that by starting your desktop application in developing mode with this.
nativephp serve
This will start a series of processes and it will start a PHP backend server and then launch the Tauri shell window and finally launch your app in a native window just as any desktop app.
After you have the app running NativePHP is going to provide you access to rich system features that will help you add a lot of functionality to the app such as desktop notifications as well as custom window controls and even system tray integration in much more.
Why NativePHP Matters ?
No Need to Learn a New Language
With NativePHP PHP developers will not need to learn any new language and they can comfortably build desktop applications with their existing PHP experience and create everything from custom CRM tools to automation tools and even communication clients and monitoring apps etc.
Cross-Platform Capabilities
NativePHP’s greatest advantage is going to be cross-platform support because of Tauri integration. This means that when you create apps with NativePHP you can expect them to run across different operating systems Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Full System Access
NativePHPmeans you get a full set of rich APIs when it comes to interaction with the host OS and this lets you build powerful tools such as file managers as well as productivity tools and even communication apps and custom developer tools. This opens up the possibilities by a lot.
Tight Laravel Integration
With NativePHP you do not have to sacrifice on the capabilities of Laravel as you get access to all the features you love such as service providers and dependency injection as well as queues etc.
NativePHP is remarkable as a framework but then again it has some minor limitations in the form of performance when it comes to very heavy apps or even very deep native integrations such as 3D rendering or even hardware acceleration. When it comes to the NativePHP community, it is still growing but it is not very big so that is also a limitation and as a result of that resources might be limited.
Keeping all that aside NativePHP is still remarkable and if you are willing to utilise this amazing framework for the development of desktop or mobile apps then we are here for you.
We are Think To Share IT Solutions and we have some of the best experienced PHP developers skilled in NativePHP development and every other kind of desktop or mobile application development.
We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do and we would love to fulfil all your app development needs.
