Germany's €108M PHP Bet: Digital Sovereignty Is Written in PHP

Germany is spending €108 million to move its federal websites onto a PHP-based CMS, the Government Site Builder, built on TYPO3. This is part of a broader pattern across Europe and beyond: public administrations are choosing PHP applications for their digital infrastructure, from the European Commission's 770 Drupal sites to Australia's GovCMS. Yet The PHP Foundation, which maintains the language, received only $730,534 in contributions in 2025, highlighting a structural gap between dependency and funding. The article proposes procurement changes to close this gap, such as allocating a percentage of contract value to upstream maintenance.