What is PhpNitro?
PhpNitro is a framework that compiles a widget tree written in PHP into real native mobile screens. No WebView, no HTML/CSS in the render pipeline: a real PHP runtime, cross-compiled via the NDK, runs on the device, computes a constraint-based layout pass then a paint pass, and sends the result — a flat list of JSON draw commands — to a Kotlin client that replays them on a real android.graphics.Canvas (Skia). If you know how to write PHP, you know how to write a native screen.
What usually happens to a PHP dev asked to ship a mobile app
The brief lands: "we need a mobile app." The backend already exists, in PHP, often for years. Three paths usually open up, and none of them start from what's already there.
The first: learn Dart and the whole Flutter ecosystem — a new language, a new widget engine, a new way of thinking about state, for a team that didn't need any of that last week. The second: learn React Native, so React first if that isn't already the case, then deal with a JS↔native bridge that has its own quirks. The third, the most tempting on paper: package the existing website in a WebView and call it an app. It works, until the day you need real camera access, a biometric sensor, a notification that wakes the app in the background — and the WebView shows its limit: it was never designed for that.
PhpNitro starts from a different question: what if the PHP already running on the server could run directly on the phone, with a real bridge to native capabilities, without starting over in another language? It's a deliberate architectural bet (see the architecture for the details, without sugar-coating it — French only for now), not a promise that everything is already solved.
Documentation in progress
The full documentation — guides, reference, architecture, and the complete widget catalog (58 pages) — currently exists in French only. It's real, detailed, and honest about what works and what doesn't yet.
- Full French documentation →
- Widget catalog → (also French, code samples are still valid PHP regardless of language)
English translations are on the way. In the meantime, want to help translate? Join the Discord.