It's only an alternative if you're running a framework which also supports those (your PHP app has to be set up in a specific way for Roadrunner or Swoole to be usable).

FrankenPHP has the advantage of working with _any_ PHP app (even WordPress) because it's just PHP, but compiled into a Go program with CGO. But it also has a worker mode which makes it behave similarly to those two.

Ah, I didn't get that. Thanks for the clarification.

You don't need any framework or specific web-server to use RoadRunner. RoadRunner can be used with any modern framework, or let's say naked, using only the PSR-7 (which is framework-agnostic) worker for HTTP, but: RR is not only HTTP, it is waaaay above that: Temporal.io support, various queue drivers, gRPC, TCP, KV, Native WebSockets/Broadcast support, distribute locks (without PHP extensions), etc. RR doesn't need to be somehow specifically set-up. Nothing special, download -> use :)

PSR-7 is framework agnostic, but not all PHP apps are PSR-7 ready. E.g. WordPress. That's the distinction. You can't just point Roadrunner at any PHP script or legacy PHP app and expect it to just run, but you can with FrankenPHP.

Sure, RR can't serve legacy PHP or WordPress (actually can, but that's not released yet), that's true. But the modern PHP ecosystem leaves lesser and lesser such a non-compatible scripts ;)

Also:

- ngx-php: https://github.com/rryqszq4/ngx-php

- Workerman: https://github.com/walkor/workerman

- ReactPHP: https://reactphp.org

And the most recent benchmarks:

https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=test&runid=0...