Is there still a market for old school PHP programming from scratch?

When PHP was still new, we coded from scratch so I never stopped doing that. I didn't like bloated frameworks and especially all of the client side scripts that every website in existence uses today that is ultra slow. You load a website, then you have to wait for additional loading icons to complete downloading all of the crap. I stopped coding for clients many years ago, but I still code for myself adding features that load immediately without any bugs. The latest project I am working on for myself is the ability to view all of the details from my brokerage account on one page which prevents me from having to login every time to their slow website and navigate through 10 different pages to see the data I want. I was wondering if there are people out there still interested in the fully custom quick loading PHP programming? I have a lot of free time these days and probably wouldn't mind adding a custom feature for someone.

 

There’s a niche for folks who appreciate the simplicity and speed of custom coding over all that bloat. If you’re thinking about collaborating with someone, I bet there are plenty out there who would love to work on something lean and efficient.

 

Dude, I used to use your classifieds script. One of the best. With the stupidity of PHP constantly moving forward, I had to rework/rewrite a lot of things in it to make it work with PDO/php 8+. Some things I had to completely throw out to make it work. I still think your original script is far superior to any other classifieds script out there. Easy to use and 100% customizable.

 

Oh wow, small world. For some reason I didn't see your post until now. Thanks for the kind words.

 

There’s still a solid little niche for old-school, custom PHP work, especially among people who care more about speed, simplicity, and having full control than chasing the latest shiny tech. A lot of businesses are still running on legacy systems or need quick, lightweight internal tools that modern frameworks would just overcomplicate. And honestly, with all the bloated, slow web apps out there, there’s a growing crowd that’s starting to appreciate a lean, no-nonsense approach again.

What you’re building, like that brokerage dashboard, is the kind of thing that actually solves problems without all the extra fluff. It’s clean, fast, and gets the job done. And there are people out there looking for exactly that. If you’re open to it, just casually putting your work out there might quietly attract the right kind of folks. People who really get what you’re about.