This article was originally published on bmf-tech.com.
I wrote an article titled Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023.
I wondered about the recent status, so I used ChatGPT's deep research feature to investigate. (Since I have moved away from PHP since last year, I didn't have much motivation to spend time researching...)
In conclusion, it seems that there hasn't been much significant change since the last investigation.
Also, most of the references are from my own articles...w
Below is a direct reference from ChatGPT's output.
Current Status of FuelPHP in 2025
I will start investigating the current status of FuelPHP in 2025. The focus will be on the continuation of development, the latest version, PHP compatibility, security support information, and community trends. I will summarize the overview without including technical details.
I will inform you as soon as the investigation results are compiled.
Continuation of Development
FuelPHP has been criticized for stagnation in development in recent years, and the development of the 1.x series (current stable version) is virtually halted. The official development team recognizes that FuelPHP 1 series has already reached EOL (End of Life) and has indicated a policy to stop focusing on the 1 series and shift resources to the future 2.0 version (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023) (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). As of 2023, core developers have stated on forums and Twitter that "we will no longer focus on the 1 series and will focus on the development of 2.0" (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023), and the main focus of development has shifted to 2.0. However, FuelPHP 2.0 is not yet released, and development is being carried out in a private repository (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). Therefore, as of now (2025), conservative updates to the 1.x series (such as bug fixes) are sporadically carried out, and major feature additions or releases are stalled. In fact, only minor commits such as copyright year updates at the end of 2024 can be confirmed, and active development is not being conducted.
Latest Version
The latest official stable version of FuelPHP is 1.8.2 (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). Version 1.8.2 was released in the late 2010s, and there have been no major official releases since. On GitHub, there is a branch called 1.9 development version (1.9/develop), which was being developed for PHP8 compatibility. However, version 1.9 was never officially released, and development resources shifted to 2.0, leaving it unreleased as of 2025 (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023) (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). Information on the Wiki mentions FuelPHP 1.9.0 (around the end of 2021), but this is merely a version tag for the development version and is not positioned as a stable version announced for general users. Therefore, the practical latest stable version is 1.8.2 (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023).
On the other hand, the future version FuelPHP 2.0 has long remained in the preparation stage for the alpha version. Although an alpha version release was announced in early 2015 (First v2 Alpha | Blog - FuelPHP), the development was delayed due to a major redesign. In 2023, the development of 2.0 resumed, and it was shared in forums that modern redesigns such as the adoption of a Dependency Injection container were being advanced (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). However, as of 2025, neither the official nor beta version of 2.0 has been released, and the specific release date is unknown.
PHP Compatibility
FuelPHP 1.x series was initially developed for PHP5.3+, and the compatible PHP versions are limited to the 7.x generation. Even in the latest stable version 1.8.2, official support is limited to PHP7.3, and there is insufficient support for subsequent PHP versions (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023) (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). In fact, the PHP versions supported by the 1.8 series (5.4 to 7.3) are already outdated versions that have reached EOL for PHP itself (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023).
However, modifications for PHP8 compatibility have been incorporated into the 1.9 development branch through contributions from volunteers and core developers. The FuelPHP 1.9 development version aims to run on PHP8.0 and 8.1 (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023), and the main developer Harro has stated that "our application is running on PHP8.1 with the 1.9-dev version of FuelPHP" (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023) (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). Around 2022, active commit contributions were made for PHP8.1 compatibility, and there are reports of successfully running FuelPHP1.9 on PHP8.1 to a certain extent (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). However, since 1.9 is unreleased, it cannot be considered an officially supported version, and using FuelPHP on PHP8 requires using the development version at one's own risk (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). In fact, in cases where companies have migrated FuelPHP projects to PHP8.1 environments, they have opted to use the unreleased 1.9 development version (bmf-tech.com - FuelPHP and PHP Update Project Report) (bmf-tech.com - FuelPHP and PHP Update Project Report).
Regarding FuelPHP 2.0, there were initial plans to support PHP7.4 and above but below 8.0 (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023), but due to delays in development, this policy is also fluid. It is likely that by the time the official version of 2.0 is released, support for PHP8 series (preferably 8.2 and beyond) will be required, but details are undecided.
Security Support Information
The FuelPHP project has not officially announced support deadlines or EOL. Information such as "how long security updates will be provided" or "when EOL will be" is not specified, and at least for the 1 series, it is considered to be effectively unsupported (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). As mentioned earlier, developers themselves have acknowledged that "the 1 series has already passed EOL" (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023), and the official team has little intention of providing active security fixes for the 1 series.
However, since FuelPHP itself is community-driven open-source, there is a possibility that patches will be provided by volunteers or major developers if serious security vulnerabilities are found. In fact, developers who continue to use FuelPHP internally have been applying bug fixes and updates themselves, and in some cases, they implicitly maintain the framework by sending PRs to GitHub (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). However, since there is no official declaration of long-term support, continuing to rely on FuelPHP 1 series poses a risk from a security perspective. As of 2025, if you use FuelPHP 1 series, you should recognize that updates to the framework itself are almost not expected, and if necessary, you should take measures such as forking it yourself and applying security patches.
Community Trends
The FuelPHP community has significantly shrunk compared to its peak. As a trend in PHP frameworks, Laravel is overwhelmingly popular, and there are fewer cases of new adoption of FuelPHP (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). Overseas developers also express harsh evaluations such as "development is stagnant, and the community is practically dead" (Is FuelPHP still a thing? : r/PHP - Reddit), and the number of active users is decreasing. As a result, the ecosystem's excitement is limited, and interactions on official forums and GitHub are not frequent.
However, the existing FuelPHP user community has not completely disappeared. Companies and developers who have been operating legacy systems built with FuelPHP for many years still exist, and information sharing and support are conducted among those users (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). For example, in Japan, there are blog articles about updating FuelPHP applications to PHP8 environments and information dissemination summarizing the current status of FuelPHP (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). Additionally, in the official forum, there were reports and questions about issues when migrating to PHP8.1 using the FuelPHP1.9 development version in 2024 (Image driver error in PHP8.1 with 1.9 Develop? - FuelPHP forums), and developers responded and addressed these issues. The main developer Harro also seems to continue providing modest support by responding to questions on the forum and committing necessary patches (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023).
In summary, the FuelPHP community is small but still exists. Although it is outside the trend of new development, mutual assistance and information exchange among existing users continue, and it has not reached a complete "project extinction." However, there is little prospect of an increase in the number of users in the future, and the main concern of the community is shifting to topics such as "how to migrate and update existing systems from FuelPHP" (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023).
Official Announcements and Forum Discussions
The blog updates on the official site have long been suspended, and new official announcements are limited. The most recent clear information from the development team is the commitment to FuelPHP 2.0 development. In early 2023, an announcement was made on the FuelPHP forum and official Twitter stating "development of the 1.x series is frozen, and we will focus on 2.0 from now on" (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). As a result, the long-anticipated official release of version 1.9 was effectively shelved, and the message "prioritize 2.0 over the 1 series" was shared with the community.
Additionally, discussions on PHP8 compatibility and the future of FuelPHP are sporadically held on the official forum. For instance, at the end of 2022, in response to a user's inquiry about "the status of PHP8.1 compatibility and the desire for an official release of 1.9," a major developer responded, "it's about time to release 1.9" (php 8.1 - FuelPHP forums). However, as mentioned earlier, the official version 1.9 has not been released to date. In addition, Harro has posted a “Sneak peek” on the forum, introducing the progress of 2.0 and sharing the design policy (such as the introduction of a PSR-compliant DI container and a review of the static class structure) with the community (Sneak peak... - FuelPHP forums). From these discussions, it can be inferred that 2.0 is planned to significantly change the architecture from the current FuelPHP, serving to provide guidance for existing users.
Overall, although official information dissemination is limited, small updates and policies are intermittently shared on forums and social media. Until a major official announcement (such as the release announcement of FuelPHP 2.0) is made, small forum posts and information exchanges within the community will be the main means of understanding the current situation.
References: Compiled based on discussions on the official FuelPHP forum, community blog articles, and Wikipedia entries (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023) (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023) (bmf-tech.com - Current Status of FuelPHP as of March 2023). To keep up with the latest trends in FuelPHP, it is advisable to regularly check the update history of the official GitHub repository and the latest posts on the forum.
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