Template Libraries Are Completely Pointless in PHP!

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. PHP is a template language. It was literally created for embedding logic in HTML. So why on earth do we keep reaching for Twig, Blade, and Smarty?

The Problem with Modern Template Engines

Let's be honest about what these engines actually give us.

Twig

Twig is powerful. It's also a completely new language you have to learn. Curly braces, pipes, filters, macros — none of it is PHP. You're essentially learning a DSL that compiles down to... PHP. The irony.

And the codebase? Twig has over 200 files. Hundreds of classes. An entire compilation pipeline that parses your templates into an AST, optimizes them, and generates PHP. All so you can write {{ name }} instead of <?= $name ?>.

Blade

Blade is Laravel's answer. It's simpler than Twig, sure. But it still introduces its own syntax. @if, @foreach, @extends — these aren't PHP. They're Blade directives that get compiled into PHP.

And here's the thing: Blade is tightly coupled to Laravel. Want to use it standalone? Good luck. You'll be pulling in Illuminate components and fighting with dependencies.

Smarty

Smarty was revolutionary in 2002. In 2025? It's a relic that somehow keeps showing up in legacy codebases. The {$variable} syntax made sense when PHP's short tags were inconsistent across servers. That hasn't been a problem for over a decade.

What Are We Actually Getting?

These engines all promise the same things:

• Auto-escaping — But PHP has htmlspecialchars()
• Template inheritance — But PHP can include() and compose strings
• Cleaner syntax — Debatable, and at what cost?

The trade-off is massive complexity. Thousands of lines of code. Compilation steps. Caching layers. Debug tooling. Documentation for a syntax that isn't even PHP.

PHP Already Has Everything You Need

Here's what people seem to forget: PHP ships with robust tools for exactly this.

Output Escaping

// Built-in, battle-tested, fast
<?= htmlspecialchars($userInput, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8') ?>

Create a helper if you want it shorter:

function e($string) {
    return htmlspecialchars($string, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
}

// Now it's just
<?= e($userInput) ?>

Input Filtering

PHP's filter_input() and filter_var() functions handle sanitization beautifully:

$email = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'email', FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
$age = filter_input(INPUT_GET, 'age', FILTER_VALIDATE_INT);

No template engine gives you better input handling than what PHP provides natively.

URL Encoding

<a href="/search?q=<?= urlencode($query) ?>">Search</a>

JSON for JavaScript

<script>
    var data = <?= json_encode($data, JSON_HEX_TAG | JSON_HEX_AMP) ?>;
</script>

All of this is built into PHP. No dependencies. No compilation. No learning curve.

IDE Support Already Exists

This is the part that really gets me.

Every IDE and text editor on the planet supports PHP:

• VS Code — PHP Intelephense, syntax highlighting, formatting
• PhpStorm — Best-in-class PHP intelligence out of the box
• Sublime, Vim, Emacs — All have mature PHP support

You get:

• Syntax highlighting
• Code completion
• Error detection
• Refactoring tools
• Linting with PHPStan, Psalm, PHP_CodeSniffer

Now try using Twig in PhpStorm. You need a plugin. And that plugin will never be as good as native PHP support. You're fighting your tools instead of using them.

With plain PHP templates, your IDE understands everything. Variables, functions, classes — it's all just PHP.

Enter PHP Compatible Templates

So I built something. It's embarrassingly simple.

The entire PHP Compatible Templates engine is 8 lines of code:

function template($path, $variables)
{
    ob_start();
    extract($variables);
    require $path;
    $output = ob_get_contents();
    ob_end_clean();
    return $output;
}

That's it. No parsing. No compilation. No caching layer. No AST. No token streams. No 200-file dependency tree.

Just:

1. Start output buffering
2. Extract variables into scope
3. Include the PHP file
4. Capture and return the output

Your templates are plain PHP:

<h1><?= e($title) ?></h1>
<ul>
<?php foreach ($items as $item): ?>
    <li><?= e($item) ?></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

Compare the Numbers

Engine	Files	Lines of Code	Dependencies
Twig	200+	20,000+	Several
Blade	Part of Laravel	Thousands	Laravel ecosystem
Smarty	100+	15,000+	Several
PHP Compatible	1	8	None

Is this a fair comparison? Maybe not — those engines have features. But ask yourself: do you actually use those features? Or are you paying the complexity tax for capabilities you never touch?

"But What About Security?"

This is always the pushback. "Twig auto-escapes! It's safer!"

Here's the thing: security isn't magic. You still have to think about it. Twig's auto-escaping doesn't protect you from:

• SQL injection
• Command injection
• Path traversal
• Business logic flaws

It handles one attack vector (XSS), and PHP's htmlspecialchars() handles that too. The difference is that with PHP, you know exactly what's happening. There's no "raw" filter to accidentally use. There's no "safe" marker to misapply.

Security comes from understanding, not from abstraction.

When Would I Use a Template Engine?

I'm not saying template engines are never useful. If you have:

• Non-PHP developers writing templates
• A genuine need for sandboxing
• A massive team that needs strict separation

Then maybe Twig makes sense.

But for most PHP applications? You're adding thousands of lines of code to avoid writing <?= ?>.

Conclusion

PHP was designed for templating. It has native output buffering, variable scoping, include mechanisms, and built-in functions for escaping and filtering. Your IDE already understands it perfectly.

Template engines like Twig, Blade, and Smarty were solutions to problems that largely don't exist anymore. They add complexity, dependencies, and a learning curve — all to generate PHP in the end anyway.

PHP Compatible Templates strips it all away. Eight lines of code. Zero dependencies. Works on PHP 5.5 through 8.x. Your templates are just PHP, which means your existing tools, knowledge, and IDE support all just work.

Sometimes the best solution is the simplest one.

Check out PHP Compatible Templates and see for yourself.