phpMyFAQ

What is phpMyFAQ?

phpMyFAQ is a multilingual, AI-ready, and scalable FAQ platform built for modern knowledge management. Powered by PHP 8.4+ and a fully database-driven architecture, it delivers fast search with Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, flexible multi-user permissions, and a powerful content management system with revision history and WYSIWYG editing.

With 40+ languages, responsive Twig-based templates, a REST API, 2FA security, enterprise authentication (LDAP, Active Directory, Entra ID), and a built-in plugin system, phpMyFAQ integrates seamlessly into almost any environment.

Deploy it on traditional hosting or run it in the cloud via Docker.

Requirements

phpMyFAQ requires PHP 8.4 or higher and a supported database system. Supported databases include MySQL, MariaDB, Percona Server, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and SQLite3.

For enhanced search capabilities using Elasticsearch or OpenSearch, Elasticsearch 8.x or later or OpenSearch 2.x or later is required.

For a complete and up-to-date list of system requirements, please refer to the official documentation at phpmyfaq.de.

Installation

phpMyFAQ installation package for end-users

The best way to install phpMyFAQ is to download it on phpmyfaq.de, unzip the package, and open http://www.example.org/phpmyfaq/setup/ in your preferred browser.

phpMyFAQ installation with Docker

Production images

Every release is published to the GitHub Container Registry as ghcr.io/thorsten/phpmyfaq:<version> (Apache) and ghcr.io/thorsten/phpmyfaq:<version>-frankenphp. docker-compose.prod.yml together with .env.production.example runs them with MariaDB or PostgreSQL and an optional search engine; see docs/deployment.md.

Dockerfile

The Dockerfile provided in this repo only builds an environment to run any release for development purpose. It does not contain any code as the phpmyfaq folder is meant to be mounted as the /var/www/html folder in the container.

docker-compose.yml

For development purposes, you can run your current phpMyFAQ source code from your local repo. Every service is gated behind a Compose profile, so you pick exactly the combination you need (one web server + the databases and search engines you want to test against).

The easiest way is the bin/dev helper, which maps friendly names to profiles and adds guardrails (it refuses to start two web servers on the same port, auto-adds Redis, generates self-signed dev TLS certificates, and installs dependencies on first run):

$ bin/dev up nginx mariadb opensearch         # exactly these (Redis added automatically)
$ bin/dev up apache postgres elasticsearch --tools
$ bin/dev preset default                      # nginx + mariadb + opensearch + redis
$ bin/dev preset full                         # one web server + every backing service
$ bin/dev down                                # stop and remove the running stack
$ bin/dev ps | logs [service] | shell <service>

Run bin/dev help, bin/dev presets, or bin/dev profiles for the full list. The same commands are available through pnpm: pnpm dev:up, pnpm dev:down, pnpm dev:default, pnpm dev:full, etc.

If you prefer raw Compose, pass the profiles yourself — a bare docker compose up now starts nothing, because no service is in the default profile: