What AFUP does

AFUP (Association française des utilisateurs de PHP) is a French non-profit community association founded in 2000 to promote the PHP programming language and its ecosystem among French-speaking professionals. It is structured as an association loi 1901 headquartered in Paris, governed by an elected board, and operates through approximately fifteen regional antennas across France plus Luxembourg, which organize recurring meetups and apéros PHP. Its primary beneficiaries are individual PHP developers and companies whose engineering teams build on PHP; corporate members include firms such as JoliCode, Les-Tilleuls.coop, Yousign, Sylius, Blackfire.io, Klaxoon, Clever Cloud, ELAO, and No Parking.

The association's flagship offerings are two annual conferences: Forum PHP, a two-day multi-track autumn event scheduled for 8-9 October 2026 in 2026, and AFUP Day, a single-day mono-track spring conference organized simultaneously across multiple cities. Supporting products include the Baromètre des salaires PHP, an annual PHP salary survey conducted in partnership with Journal du Net and published for over a decade; La Veille de l'AFUP, a quarterly newsletter; Planète PHP, an RSS aggregator of French PHP blog content; PUFA, a PHP-themed word game; and a video archive of past conference talks. The technical footprint is conventional association infrastructure (website, event registration, membership platform) hosted on Clever Cloud, with no proprietary software product or AI components.

AFUP is financed through four streams: individual and corporate membership subscriptions billed annually, ticket sales for Forum PHP and AFUP Day at multiple price tiers including early bird and student/reduced rates, corporate sponsorship packages essential to event financing, and a small merchandise shop at shop.afup.org. There is no venture capital, no parent company, and no public funding; the organization is membership-driven and operates on a non-commercial basis. In 2026, AFUP is marking its 25th anniversary while publicly communicating organizational challenges around a weaker-than-expected salary survey collection campaign.

Name

AFUP

Legal name

Association française des utilisateurs de PHP

Website

https://afup.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2000

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

AFUP is a French non-profit community association, founded in 2000, that represents PHP developers and companies using PHP in France through annual conferences (Forum PHP, AFUP Day), roughly 15 regional antennas, and supporting programs including a salary barometer and quarterly newsletter.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices15 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Membership fees (cotisations): AFUP generates revenue through individual and corporate membership fees. The association offers membership options for individuals and companies, with membership providing access to community resources, events, and the network of PHP professionals.
2. Event ticketing: Revenue is generated through ticket sales for major conferences including Forum PHP and AFUP Day. Tickets are sold at various price tiers including early bird, standard, and student/reduced rates.
3. Sponsorships: Corporate sponsors support AFUP events and the association through various sponsorship packages. The sponsorship program is described as essential for event financing.
4. AFUP Shop: The association operates an online shop (shop.afup.org) selling merchandise including branded items.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

AFUP is a French non-profit association that organizes and delivers the community infrastructure for PHP developers in France and Luxembourg, including annual conferences (Forum PHP, AFUP Day), regional meetups through ~15 antennas, an annual PHP salary barometer, and a quarterly newsletter (La Veille de l'AFUP). Its offerings are financed through individual and corporate memberships, event ticketing, corporate sponsorships, and merchandise sales.

Product overview

AFUP operates as a community association offering a portfolio of programs centered on PHP knowledge sharing and community building. The core offerings include the Forum PHP (annual autumn conference) and AFUP Day (spring multi-city event) as the flagship conferences, complemented by local antennas organizing regional meetups and PHP apéros throughout France. Supporting programs include the Baromètre des salaires PHP (annual salary survey conducted with the Journal du Net), La Veille de l'AFUP (quarterly newsletter), Planète PHP (RSS aggregator), and PUFA (community word game). The organization also maintains an extensive archive of recorded talks and enforces a comprehensive code of conduct for all community activities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Forum PHP: Annual autumn conference of the AFUP, the main PHP event in France
• AFUP Day
• Super Apéro PHP
• Baromètre des salaires PHP
• La Veille de l'AFUP
• Planète PHP
• PUFA

Products and services

• Forum PHP Annual two-day PHP-focused conference organized by AFUP featuring talks, workshops, and networking for the French PHP community.
• AFUP Day Annual spring single-day, mono-track conference organized simultaneously across multiple AFUP antenna cities, allowing localized participation while maintaining a unified program.
• Baromètre des salaires PHP Annual salary survey for PHP developers in France, conducted in partnership with the Journal du Net, providing benchmarking data on compensation trends in the PHP ecosystem.
• La Veille de l'AFUP Quarterly newsletter delivering curated PHP news, language progress updates, specialist tips, and version announcements to AFUP members.
• Local Antennas (Antennes locales) Approximately fifteen regional antennas across France and Luxembourg that organize meetups, PHP apéros, and local community events, acting as AFUP's local representatives.
• Super Apéro PHP Annual large-scale community gathering combining networking, drinks, and informal PHP discussions, typically held in June.
• Planète PHP RSS aggregator curating PHP-related content from various French sources into a single feed for the community.
• PUFA PHP-themed word-guessing game similar to SUTOM, created by AFUP as a community engagement tool.
• Vidéos / Talks Archive Comprehensive archive of recorded conference talks from past AFUP events, PHP Tour, and Forum PHP conferences.
• Individual Membership Annual membership subscription for individual PHP developers, providing access to community resources, events, and the network of PHP professionals.
• Corporate Membership Annual corporate membership for companies using PHP, providing access to the AFUP community for recruitment, employer branding, and event sponsorship benefits.
• AFUP Shop Online shop selling AFUP-branded merchandise and items.

Named customers9 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Sensiolabs (Symfony): Sensiolabs, the company behind the Symfony framework, runs training, certification, and community events (including SymfonyLive) for the French and European PHP ecosystem. It is the most direct peer to AFUP: both organize the principal French PHP community events and serve overlapping developer and corporate audiences.
• Human Coders: Human Coders is a French platform organizing tech meetups, conferences, and recruitment events across multiple programming communities, including PHP. It competes with AFUP for sponsor mindshare, event calendars, and developer attention in France, with a similar but broader multi-language scope.
• FranceLabs (Drupal France): FranceLabs is the French Drupal community association, organizing DrupalCon Europe and other events for French-speaking Drupal contributors and users. Like AFUP, it is a language-/CMS-specific community association running conferences, local meetups, and corporate sponsorship programs.

Regional players

• DotJS: DotJS is a large annual JavaScript conference held in Paris, drawing international speakers and corporate sponsors. While it competes for the same Paris-based developer audience and corporate sponsorship pool as Forum PHP, its focus is JavaScript and its scale is broader.
• PHP-FIG (PHP Framework Interop Group): PHP-FIG is the international group that defines PHP standards (PSR) across frameworks. It is comparable to AFUP as a PHP community governance body, but operates globally and is standards-focused rather than event- and community-focused, and is not France-centric.

Broad incumbents

• Devoxx France: Devoxx France is one of the largest annual developer conferences in France, covering Java and broader software engineering topics. It is a broader incumbent in the same French developer-events space that AFUP occupies for PHP specifically, competing for corporate sponsorship budgets.
• OWASP France: OWASP France is the French chapter of the Open Worldwide Application Security Project, a non-profit community association running local meetups, training, and conferences for application security. It shares the volunteer-driven, French-language community association model with AFUP.

Emerging players

• Paris.js: Paris.js is a volunteer-run community organizing JavaScript meetups in Paris and other French cities. It shares the local meetup, community-driven model with AFUP antennas, but focuses on JavaScript and has a less formalized national structure.
• Paris.rb / Ruby France: Paris.rb and Ruby France organize Ruby language meetups and community events in France. They follow the same country-specific programming language community model as AFUP but with a smaller footprint and corporate sponsor base.
• PostgreSQLFR (FRPostgres): PostgreSQLFR is the French PostgreSQL user association, organizing meetups, conferences (pgDay Paris), and community resources for French PostgreSQL users. It mirrors AFUP's structure as a non-profit French language-specific user group, though in the database rather than web development space.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/afup
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@afup
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/afup

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about AFUP