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Best MCP Servers for PHP Developers in 2026

PHP powers 77% of the web. Discover the best MCP servers for PHP and Laravel developers — from database tools and Composer dependency management to deployment automation and API testing.

By MyMCPTools Team·

PHP powers approximately 77% of all websites with a known server-side language — including WordPress, Laravel, Symfony, and countless custom applications. Yet PHP developers are often overlooked in the AI tooling conversation. MCP changes that, giving PHP devs AI assistance that integrates directly with their stack: MySQL databases, Composer packages, Laravel queues, and Redis caches.

This guide covers the MCP servers that provide the most value for PHP and Laravel development workflows.

1. MySQL MCP Server — Database-Native Development

MySQL is the de facto database for PHP applications. The MySQL MCP server gives your AI assistant direct access to your database — enabling development workflows that understand your actual schema, not a generic template.

PHP-specific use cases:

  • Migration generation: AI reads current schema → Generates Laravel migration files that correctly reflect existing tables and relationships
  • Eloquent model generation: AI inspects tables → Creates model classes with correct relationships, casts, and fillable attributes
  • Query optimization: AI reads slow query log + EXPLAIN output → Identifies missing indexes and query rewrites
  • Seed data creation: AI reads schema + business logic → Generates realistic factory and seeder files

2. PostgreSQL MCP Server — Advanced PHP Applications

Growing numbers of PHP applications use PostgreSQL for advanced features like JSON columns, full-text search, and geospatial queries. The PostgreSQL MCP server offers the same schema-aware development benefits with PostgreSQL-specific capabilities.

Laravel + PostgreSQL patterns:

  • Generate JSONB column handlers with proper casting in Eloquent
  • Build full-text search configurations that leverage PostgreSQL's tsvector type
  • Create database functions and stored procedures with AI assistance using real schema context

3. Redis MCP Server — Cache and Queue Management

Laravel applications rely heavily on Redis for caching, session storage, and job queues. The Redis MCP server lets your AI assistant inspect cache contents, monitor queue depth, and debug caching issues.

Laravel development patterns:

  • Inspect Redis cache keys to debug caching strategy and TTL configuration
  • Monitor Laravel queue depths to identify processing bottlenecks
  • Debug session data issues in staging environments
  • Generate cache warming scripts based on application hot paths

4. GitHub MCP Server — Code Review and CI/CD

The GitHub MCP server connects your AI assistant to your PHP project's version control — enabling code review, issue analysis, and release automation with full codebase context.

PHP development workflows:

  • PR review: AI reads diff + existing code patterns → Flags PSR violations, missing type declarations, security issues (SQL injection risks, XSS vulnerabilities)
  • Composer audit: AI reads composer.lock → Identifies packages with known CVEs
  • Changelog generation: New release → AI reads commits → Generates user-facing changelog in keep-a-changelog format
  • Issue triage: New bug report with stack trace → AI reads relevant code → Identifies likely cause

5. Filesystem MCP Server — Project Structure Awareness

Laravel projects follow a structured convention, but real applications diverge — custom service providers, domain-driven directories, packages within the project. The Filesystem MCP server lets AI navigate your actual structure.

What this unlocks:

  • Read your existing controllers before generating new ones to match your team's patterns
  • Navigate service class organization to understand where new functionality belongs
  • Read configuration files before generating feature code that depends on them
  • Understand your custom artisan commands before suggesting new automation

6. Brave Search MCP Server — Package Research

PHP's Packagist ecosystem has tens of thousands of packages. The Brave Search MCP server lets your AI assistant research current packages — finding maintained alternatives, checking download stats, and comparing options.

Research automation:

  • Research the current state of PHP packages for a specific use case (e.g., "PDF generation in PHP 2026") before recommending one
  • Check whether an abandoned package has a maintained fork
  • Find the current recommended way to implement a pattern in Laravel (practices change between major versions)

7. Slack MCP Server — Team Development Communication

PHP teams using Slack for communication can connect MCP to avoid context-switching during development. AI assistance that can read your team's previous discussions about a problem gives more relevant answers.

Development workflow patterns:

  • Before investigating a bug: search Slack for previous discussions of the error
  • During incident response: AI reads #alerts channel history to understand what's already been tried
  • Code review: AI reads team discussion about architectural decisions before commenting on new code

8. Memory MCP Server — Long-Term Project Context

PHP applications often have years of accumulated technical debt, quirks, and conventions. The Memory MCP server lets you persist context that your AI assistant should always know — reducing repetitive explanation.

What to store for PHP projects:

  • Your PHP version target and upgrade roadmap
  • Known legacy code patterns to avoid (and their modern replacements)
  • Custom helper functions and their preferred usage patterns
  • Deployment requirements and environment-specific gotchas
  • Third-party API integrations and their limitations

Setting Up MCP for PHP Development

  1. Start with MySQL or PostgreSQL MCP — database context provides the most immediate value for PHP developers
  2. Add GitHub MCP for code review and repository navigation
  3. Configure Filesystem MCP pointing to your project root
  4. Add Redis MCP if you use Laravel queues or caching heavily
  5. Use Memory MCP to persist project-specific context

Recommended Stack by PHP Framework

  • Laravel developers: MySQL + Redis + GitHub + Filesystem + Memory
  • WordPress developers: MySQL + Filesystem + GitHub + Brave Search
  • Symfony developers: PostgreSQL + GitHub + Filesystem + Slack
  • API-first PHP (Slim, Lumen): PostgreSQL + GitHub + Brave Search + Memory

Browse all PHP-relevant MCP servers at MyMCPTools. See also Best MCP Servers for Backend Developers and Best MCP Servers for Database Management.

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🔧 MCP Servers Mentioned in This Article

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PostgreSQL MCP Server

The PostgreSQL MCP server was the Model Context Protocol reference server for Postgres, and it is retired: the source now sits in modelcontextprotocol/servers-archived — a repository GitHub reports as archived, described as "Reference MCP servers that are no longer maintained" — and the npm package @modelcontextprotocol/server-postgres carries a deprecation notice reading "Package no longer supported." It still installs and still runs, which is why most third-party setup articles have not caught up. What it provides is deliberately small: a single tool, query, which executes read-only SQL inside a READ ONLY transaction, plus per-table schema information exposed as MCP resources at postgres://<host>/<table>/schema, with column names and data types discovered from database metadata. There is no index advice, no health check, no separate schema-listing tool, and no write mode. Install is npx @modelcontextprotocol/server-postgres with a postgres:// connection string as the argument. For active work against Postgres, the maintained alternative is Postgres MCP Pro (crystaldba/postgres-mcp), which exposes nine tools including index tuning against hypothetical indexes and a database health check, and has an explicit restricted access mode; if your database is hosted on Supabase or Neon, their platform servers add branching and logs that a raw Postgres connection cannot see. Reach for this archived server only when you want the smallest possible surface — one process, one read-only query tool, nothing else.

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MySQL MCP Server

The MySQL MCP Server connects AI assistants directly to MySQL databases, enabling natural-language SQL workflows without a GUI client or hand-written queries. **Install the scoped package, `@f4ww4z/mcp-mysql-server`, not the unscoped one.** The bare name `mcp-mysql-server` on npm belongs to a different author (enemyrr) and a different, smaller project — a name collision, not a mirror — so `npx mcp-mysql-server` installs software other than the repository linked from this page. That distinction is the single most common way this server is installed wrong. Built by f4ww4z (168 stars), it exposes MySQL as callable MCP tools: execute arbitrary SQL, inspect table schemas and column definitions, list databases and tables, describe indexes and constraints, run stored procedures, and manage transactions with commit and rollback control. Typical prompts are "show me the 10 most recent orders," "describe the users table including its indexes," "find customers with no order in 90 days," or "insert a test row into staging and roll it back after I check it." Authentication uses ordinary MySQL connection parameters — MYSQL_HOST, MYSQL_USER, MYSQL_PASSWORD, MYSQL_DATABASE — set as environment variables in your client config, so it works against local instances and managed databases alike (Amazon RDS, PlanetScale, DigitalOcean Managed MySQL). Treat the credentials you hand it as the permissions you are handing the model: it can run whatever that user can run, including writes and DDL, so point it at a read-only account for exploration work. Compatible with Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, and Cline.

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Redis MCP Server

The Redis MCP Server (redis/mcp-redis) is Redis's own natural-language interface for agentic applications, letting an AI client read and write Redis data over the Model Context Protocol. Note which one you install: the server most tutorials still point at is Anthropic's reference implementation, which now lives in modelcontextprotocol/servers-archived, and its npm package @modelcontextprotocol/server-redis is explicitly marked "Package no longer supported" with a last publish of 2025-04-25. The maintained server is a Python package instead, run with uvx --from redis-mcp-server@latest, and it covers far more of Redis than the reference one did: string, hash, list, set and sorted-set tools; JSON document tools; pub/sub with stateful channel and pattern subscriptions; Streams tools including consumer-group create, read, acknowledge and destroy; vector index management and vector search through the query engine; a docs search tool; and a server-management tool for database info. Connection is a redis:// or rediss:// URL passed as --url, or the REDIS_HOST/REDIS_PORT/REDIS_PWD/REDIS_SSL environment variables, with Redis Cluster mode behind REDIS_CLUSTER_MODE and EntraID service-principal, managed-identity and default-credential auth flows for Azure Managed Redis. There is no --read-only flag: the documented way to stop an agent writing is a Redis ACL user (ACL SETUSER readonlyuser on >pw ~* +@read -@write). Ships as a PyPI package, a GitHub install via uvx, and an official mcp/redis Docker image; stdio transport only.

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GitHub MCP Server

authenticated access to the whole GitHub platform — repositories, files, branches, issues, pull requests, Actions runs, security alerts, discussions and notifications — from Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Copilot CLI and any other MCP host. There is no npm package for this server, and that trips up most people who try to install it: `@github/mcp-server` is not published to the npm registry, so any `npx` line you find for it will fail. GitHub ships it three other ways. The easiest is the hosted remote server at https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/, which needs no install at all — point an HTTP-transport MCP client at that URL and log in with OAuth (VS Code 1.101+, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor and Windsurf all support this). The second is the official Docker image ghcr.io/github/github-mcp-server, which is what the copy-paste command on this page runs; on github.com it now performs a browser-based OAuth login on first use and keeps the token in memory only, which is why the published Docker configs map a fixed loopback callback port (-p 127.0.0.1:8085:8085 with GITHUB_OAUTH_CALLBACK_PORT=8085) so the container can receive the callback. Prefer a token? Set GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN instead — it takes precedence over OAuth, and the minimum useful scopes are repo, read:org and read:packages. The third is the native Go binary from the repository's releases, which needs no fixed port for the OAuth flow. GitHub Enterprise Server has no hosted option: use the local server with --gh-host or GITHUB_HOST set to your instance (include the https:// scheme — it defaults to http://, which GHES rejects). Toolsets can be narrowed with GITHUB_TOOLSETS, and an insiders channel is available at /mcp/insiders or via the X-MCP-Insiders header.

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Filesystem MCP Server

sandboxed read, write, edit, move and search access to an explicit whitelist of local directories, and it is the reference implementation most other filesystem MCP servers are modelled on. Shipped by Anthropic in the official modelcontextprotocol/servers monorepo (89,000+ stars, actively maintained), it is a Node.js server published to npm as @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem. The part worth understanding before you install is the access-control model, because there are now two ways to grant directories and they do not compose. Method one is command-line arguments: `npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /path/one /path/two`. Method two, and the one the maintainers recommend, is MCP Roots — a client that supports the roots protocol sends its roots at initialization, and those roots COMPLETELY REPLACE any directories passed on the command line, then get replaced again on every `notifications/roots/list_changed`. That means allowed directories can change at runtime without restarting the server, but it also means a roots-capable client silently overrides your CLI arguments. If the server starts with no arguments and the client either does not support roots or sends an empty list, initialization throws an error. The tool surface is broad: `read_text_file` (with mutually exclusive `head`/`tail` line windows), `read_media_file` returning base64 image/audio content blocks, `read_multiple_files` which keeps going when individual reads fail, `write_file`, `edit_file`, `create_directory`, `list_directory`, `list_directory_with_sizes`, `move_file`, `search_files`, `directory_tree`, `get_file_info` and `list_allowed_directories`. `edit_file` is the one to learn — it does line-based and multi-line pattern matching with indentation detection and preservation, returns a git-style diff with context, and supports `dryRun: true` so you can preview a change before applying it; the maintainers recommend always running a dry run first. Every operation is refused outside the allowed set, and `list_allowed_directories` is the fastest way to confirm what the server actually believes it can touch.

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Brave Search MCP Server

The Brave Search MCP Server is the official server from Brave that gives AI assistants privacy-first web search through the independent Brave Search API — no tracking, no profiling, and results drawn from Brave's own web index rather than Google or Bing. It exposes five distinct tools that map directly to the Brave Search API endpoints: brave_web_search for general queries with pagination, freshness filters, and safe-search controls; brave_local_search for businesses, restaurants, and points of interest with automatic location filtering; brave_news_search for recent articles and current events; brave_image_search for image discovery; and brave_video_search for finding videos across the web. Authentication uses a single BRAVE_API_KEY (free tier available at brave.com/search/api) or a mounted BRAVE_API_KEY_FILE for Docker-secret setups. Install in Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, or VS Code with one npx command and choose stdio or streamable-HTTP transport. Because Brave operates its own crawler and index, the Brave Search MCP server is a strong choice for developers who want an alternative to Google-dependent search tools, need reproducible non-personalized results, or care about data privacy in agent workflows — Claude can pull fresh web context, verify facts, and research topics without leaking queries to ad-tech pipelines.

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Slack MCP Server

The Slack MCP server (built by Ivan Korotovsky) connects AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and Windsurf directly to Slack workspaces, enabling conversational access to your team communication channels without requiring workspace admin approval for a bot install. Its standout feature is a "no permission" stealth mode — it authenticates using your own personal Slack session tokens (xoxc/xoxd, or a stored browser session) rather than requiring a Slack App with OAuth scopes, so it works even in locked-down workspaces where you cannot create bots. It also supports full OAuth Bot Token auth and Enterprise/GovSlack deployments for teams that prefer a conventional app install. Tools exposed include reading channel and DM/group-DM history with smart pagination, searching messages across the workspace, posting messages and thread replies, listing channels and users, and adding reactions. Common use cases include automating standups by posting summaries directly to team channels, searching past Slack conversations to surface decisions or context, monitoring specific channels for keywords or alerts, and drafting replies to thread discussions — all from natural-language prompts. Supports both Stdio and SSE transports plus proxy configuration for corporate networks. Install with: `npx slack-mcp-server@latest --transport stdio`. A separate official-style integration exists from Zencoder (@zencoderai/slack-mcp-server) for teams that prefer standard Bot Token OAuth over session-token auth. Compatible with Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, and Cline.

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Memory

Knowledge graph-based persistent memory system. Store and retrieve contextual information.

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