Hey r/PHP, I wanted to share a practical implementation of FrankenPHP and native SQLite powering a self-hosted personal WebTop: YouMeOS Microverse. A major problem with self-hosted PHP applications is distribution: telling non-technical users to install Docker, Nginx, and MySQL creates massive friction.

How We Utilized FrankenPHP:

• Embedded Desktop Engine: In addition to standard Docker Compose, our Electron desktop app bundles a portable FrankenPHP binary with SQLite.
• Zero External Dependencies: Users download the .exe, .dmg, or .AppImage, and it runs a local Caddy + PHP 8.3 server process in the background without Docker or local PHP installations.
• Resource Footprint: Cold starts take ~1 second, with idle RAM usage significantly lower than traditional Apache/Nginx + PHP-FPM + MySQL stacks.
• Caddy Worker Integration: Takes advantage of FrankenPHP's fast application handling directly from local storage.

Livesite: www.youmeos.com but the microverse can be ran locally using our docker container or binaries.

Source code and configs: https://github.com/YouMeOS/youmeos-microverse
Release builds: https://github.com/YouMeOS/youmeos-microverse/releases

Feedback on our FrankenPHP runner and Caddyfile setup is welcome.