The Dev.to blog has a tutorial posted from author Saquib Rizwan showing an easy way to deploy a Laravel application to Cloudways via their platform and the PHP stack they offer.

Even if you know all about it, setting up and configuring a dedicated server is a time consuming multi-step process. But thanks to managed hosting solutions available in the market today, setting up servers is no longer a major action item on project task lists.

Deploying Laravel application on cloud infrastructure is never been this fast and easy before. [...] Cloudways provides an incredible platform for Laravel Community. It makes it easy to deploy and host laravel applications so that developers can focus on the development process rather than worrying about deployment and server level issues.

The post lists out some of the benefits of the Cloudways platform before starting in on the technology behind their "ThunderStack" PHP environment. With the basics covered, Saquib then moves on to deploying the server via Cloudways, linking it to your application on GitHub and providing the proper key information for them to connect. With all of this in place, the "Start Deployment" button is ready for use and the application and server can be started quickly.

The CloudWays blog has posted an article sharing the results from some benchmarking they've done comparing Laravel 5 on PHP 5.6 versus PHP 7.

Laravel is rapidly becoming a popular choice for PHP projects. The framework has established its reputation after the release of version 5.x. In the same vein, PHP recently received a major update in the form of PHP 7.1.x.

It is an established fact that Laravel has a solid codebase and provides optimized performance for all lightweight and enterprise level applications. However no statistics about Laravel 5 benchmarks and its performance with PHP 5.6 and PHP 7 are widely available.

Using the Blitz testing tool and sample Laravel applications managed through CloudWays (on DigitalOcean), they benchmarked mean response times and the "hit rate" of the requested pages. Graphs are included of the results for both PHP 5.6 and PHP 7 and the post ends with a comparison of the results from the two scenarios with PHP 7 coming out on top.

The CloudWays blog has posted another in their series of interviews with members of the PHP community. In their latest interview they talk with James Titcumb, an organizer of the PHP South Coast conference, Zend Framework developer and well-known community speaker.

Today we are honored to have James Titcumb for this interview. He is a PHP Consultant at Roave and an Organizer of the PHP South Coast Conference. He runs PHP Hampshire PHP user group. Additionally, He is the project lead for the Browser Capabilities and Better Reflection project.

In the interview James answers questions about:

• His career as a PHP developer
• About Roave and what they do
• the "Better Reflection" project's goals
• his thoughts on the Zend Framework
• his expectations for this year's PHP South Coast conference

You can read his answers to these and other questions in the full interview.

On the Cloudways blog they've posted another in their series of interviews with members of the PHP community. In this latest article they talk with Taylor Otwell, the creator and lead developer of the Laravel framework.

Even today, PHP developers face the tough question of which framework to choose for their next project. The choice has largely been restricted to a handful of frameworks, out of which Laravel and Symfony stand out of the competition.

To clarify the situation, I reached out to Taylor Otwell, the creator of the Laravel framework to clarify some of the important points of the debate. This interview covers Otwell’s opinions on Laravel vs. Symfony debate and the competition between PHP and JavaScript.

In the interview Taylor answers questions about:

• selecting a framework (Symfony vs Laravel)
• the differences between the two frameworks and their usual audiences
• workflow automation with Laravel
• framework release cycles
• the communities around each framework

You can read Taylor's answers to these and other questions in the full interview.

On the Cloudways blog they've posted another interview with a member of the PHP community. This time they talk with Anna Filina, a well-known speaker and one of the organizers of the Confoo conference that happens in both Montreal and Vancouver.

Today we are honored to have Anna Filina for this interview. She was a vice president at FooLab and an organizer for ConFoo, a world-renowned conference for developers in Montreal and Vancouver area. Additionally, Anna speaks regularly at international PHP conferences, provides training and consultancy to the developers around the world.

In the interview Anna answers questions about:

• How she got started in development
• What topics she usually covers in her training sessions
• Her favorite framework
• Her opinions on conferences

The interview finishes with Anna talking about some of the things she does to unwind and relax when she's not training or running Confoo.

On the Cloudways blog there's a new post sharing an interview with Phil Sturgeon with some of his thoughts about API development, the PHP-FIG organization, PHP-related books and the future of the language.

Today we are super excited to have Phil Sturgeon with us for this interview. Phil is a cool dude and an experienced API dev. He has a lot of experience in creating API for different platforms. Right now, he is working at WeWork as a Platform Engineer. He has written an excellent book on creating API, “Build APIs You Won’t Hate”. He has worked with popular PHP tools and frameworks including CodeIgniter, FuelPHP, PyroCMS. Phil also contributed to PHP The Right Way and PHP-FIG.

Phil also speaks at PHP conferences and often mentors budding developers. In this Interview he talks about his development experiences, workflows and experience with API development.

In the interview Phil answers questions about:

• how he got started in PHP development
• his opinions on PHP 7.x
• preferred development workflows
• his (previous) involvement with the PHP-FIG
• his speaking and the topics he usually covers

Check out the full interview for answers to these and other questions.

The CloudWays blog has posted another in its series of interviews with members of the PHP community. In this latest article they talk with Stefan Priebsch of thePHP.cc (a consulting company) and some of his experiences, past and present, in the world of PHP.

Today, We are honoured to have Stefan Priebsch for this interview. He is a cofounder of thePHP.cc, a well known PHP consulting firm. He is also an entrepreneur, university lecturer and a thought leader in modern software application architecture. Stefan specializes in PHP powered enterprise applications and has built an enviable reputation as one of the best trainers in Germany.

Additionally, Stefan speaks regularly at international PHP conferences and wrote a book PHP 7 Explained with Sebastian Bergmann and Arne Blankerts. In this interview, he talks about his career, PHP 7 ebook and the latest developments in the industry.

In the interview Stefan answers questions about the benefits of the PHP 7.x releases, his work at thePHP.cc, his book, what development tools he uses and how he spends his free time. You can read his answers to these questions and more in the full interview.

The Cloudways blog has a tutorial posted helping you add CAPTCHA functionality of your Symfony 3 form handling. In this case they're adding the Google reCAPTCHA handling to a registration form for users of your system.

Websites use different techniques and methods to validate contact, login and user registration forms. Some opt for custom validation methods while a large majority deploy third-party validation techniques.

Google provides a well known and proven validation tool known as reCAPTCHA. In this tutorial, I will demonstrate how to add Google reCAPTCHA to a Symfony 3 registration form. Hence, if you’re looking for a Recaptcha Symfony union, you’ve got it!

They start by helping you set up a Cloudways PHP application and install the latest version of the Symfony 3 framework on it as a sample application. They then walk you through the steps required to create a reCAPTCHA application and hooking it into your Cloudways server's hostname. With that set up they move over into the Symfony application, generating the User entity via Doctrine and creating the matching view/controller to handle the reCAPTCHA output. The registration form is then created and the handling is added to verify the CAPTCHA value submitted against the Google servers.

The Cloudways.com blog has posted their latest interview with a member of the PHP community. In this new interview they talk with Stefan Koopmanschap about some of his background in development and thoughts about the community and language.

Stefan is the co-founder of PHPBenelux and speaker of many PHP conference around the world. He has a vast experience of development. He was the community manager of Symfony framework. Stefan is the Zend Certified and have also contributed in Zend Framework. He is the co-founder and trainer at Tech Academy and the podcast host at Dutch Web Alliance.

In his interview with Cloudways Stefan talks about his career start, share his experience as a speaker. What he contributed in Zend Framework. Comparing NodeJS with PHP 7 and Zend with Symfony. Giving advice to students and telling us which people to follow in PHP community.

In the interview Stefan answers questions about:

• How he started out his career as a developer and mentors that helped
• Speaking at conferences and where he got his start
• Thoughts comparing Zend Framework and Symfony
• His avid use of GitHub
• Recommendations of people to follow in the community
• Advice to beginners just starting in the language

They also mention Stefan's other passion - DJing for On Air Radio - and how he got started there. You can read the answers to these and other questions in the full interview.

The CloudWays blog has posted their latest interview with a member of the PHP community. In this new article they talk with Freek Van Der Herten.

Freek is a Laravel enthusiast and a PHP developer. Also, he has been writing on his blog. He is a developer at Spatie. He lives in Belgium and is a Zend Certified Engineer. He was a speaker at the “Uncon” of PHP Benelux conference 2016.

In the interview Freek answers questions about:

• How he originally got into computers/programming
• His opinions on the Laravel ecosystem
• His views on the overall PHP community growth
• The web development competition in Belgium

There's also a bit about his own hobbies and interests including music, writing articles for "P-Magazine" and reading up on the latest in programming blogs. You can read the full interview with answers to these and many more questions here.