The 2026 PHP testing pyramid: unit with Pest, integration with native PHPUnit, mutation testing with Infection. Pragmatic guide.
PHP code without tests in 2026 is code that ages badly.
70% unit (Pest), 25% integration (PHPUnit), 5% E2E (Playwright or Panther).
Jest-like syntax, dataset-driven params, readable output.
Mutation testing catches what coverage misses. The biggest quality boost in 2 years.
Property hooks, asymmetric visibility, new() without parentheses — PHP 8.4 brings major syntax changes. A concrete tour with examples.
Checkout, webhooks, customer portal, downgrade handling — the full guide based on a real deployed and billed implementation.
After shipping several projects on both stacks, here is my honest verdict — with the criteria that should decide for each project type.
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