Suraski

Suraski is an Israeli software engineer and entrepreneur best known for co-creating the Zend Engine and co-founding Zend Technologies. His work, in collaboration with Andi Gutmans, has had a lasting impact on the PHP ecosystem.

In the late 1990s, Suraski and Gutmans rewrote PHP’s execution model, creating the Zend Engine. The engine powered PHP 4 and later PHP 5, delivering substantial improvements in performance, memory management, and language capabilities. This work helped establish PHP as a dominant platform for web development and enabled more scalable, enterprise-facing applications.

In 1999 they founded Zend Technologies to commercialize PHP technology, provide enterprise support, and develop development tools for the PHP ecosystem. Zend Technologies produced products and frameworks such as the Zend Engine, Zend Framework, Zend Studio, and Zend Server, and it played a central role in shaping PHP’s commercial and developer tooling landscape. Suraski held leadership roles at Zend, contributing to engine development, product strategy, and community engagement.

Legacy: Suraski’s contributions are widely recognized within the PHP community for shaping the language’s performance and capabilities during a formative period of its history. The Zend Engine remains a foundational component of PHP, influencing how the language is implemented and optimized in modern deployments. Details about his personal life and current activities are not broadly publicized.