Trongate

April 23, 2026 · View on GitHub

A zero-dependency PHP framework that includes CSS and JavaScript libraries.

Why Trongate?

High performance (benchmarks)
Stability-focused
Zero dependencies
No Composer

Requirements

PHP 8+
gd module loaded in php.ini (for image uploader)
intl module loaded in php.ini (for url_title() string helper)
MariaDB or MySQL

Installation

Download the latest release from the Trongate GitHub repository and extract it into your web server's document root (e.g., C:\xampp\htdocs on Windows or /var/www/html/ on Linux).

Rename the extracted folder to something simple, like trongate.

Edit config/config.php and set BASE_URL to the URL where the framework will run, e.g., http://localhost/trongate/. Ensure it ends with /.

Web Server Configuration

Apache: No changes required. The included .htaccess files handle routing.

Nginx: In /etc/nginx/sites-available/default, inside the main server{...} block, add:

location /trongate/ {
    alias /var/www/html/trongate/public/;
    try_files $uri $uri/ /trongate/index.php;
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.4-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;
    }
}

Database Setup

On Linux, the root user often cannot connect over TCP, so create a dedicated database user:

sudo mariadb
CREATE USER 'trongate'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON demo.* TO 'trongate'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Replace these values with your own credentials.

Update config/database.php accordingly.

Critical Production Settings

Before you deploy to production, perform the checks in Pre-Launch Checklist.

Usage

Trongate apps use modules containing controllers and optional views. Routing is simple: {module}/{method}/{...params} maps to a controller method.

Example: A Minimal Full‑Stack Cycle

Create a module:

modules/demo

NOTE: do not include hyphens (-) or _module in module names.

Create a database and table:

CREATE DATABASE demo;
USE demo;

CREATE TABLE demo_table (
    id INT UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL
);

Add a controller:

modules/demo/Demo.php

<?php
class Demo extends Trongate {
    public function index(): void {
        $data['records'] = $this->db->get('id', 'demo_table', 'ASC', 'array');
        $this->templates->public($data); // Wraps default 'index' view with 'public' HTML template
    }

    public function create(): void {
        $this->validation->set_rules('name', 'name', 'required|min_length[3]');
        if ($this->validation->run() === true) { // Also checks CSRF
            $this->db->insert([
                'name' => post('name', true)
            ], 'demo_table');
        }
        redirect('demo');
    }
    
    public function delete(): void {
    	$id = segment(3, 'int');
    	if ($id > 0){
    		$this->db->delete($id, 'demo_table');
    	}
    	redirect('demo');
    }
}

Add a view:

modules/demo/views/index.php

<div id="response" class="container text-left"><!-- Trongate CSS classes -->
	<h1>Demo</h1>
		<ul>
		<?php foreach ($records as $r): ?>
		<li><?= out($r['name']) ?>  <!-- Escape HTML output -->
  			<button class="danger" mx-post="<?= BASE_URL ?>demo/delete/<?= $r['id'] ?>" mx-trigger="click" mx-target="#response">Delete</button>
  		</li>
		<?php endforeach; ?>
		</ul>
		

		<?= validation_errors() ?>		
		<form mx-post="<?= BASE_URL ?>demo/create" mx-target="#response" action="#" method="post"><!-- AJAX form submission -->
  			<input name="name" placeholder="Name" autocomplete="off">
  			<button type="submit" name="submit">Add</button>
		<?= form_close() ?>	<!-- CSRF token -->
</div>

<!-- Import Trongate MX JS library -->
<script src="<?= BASE_URL ?>js/trongate-mx.js"></script>

Visit:

http://localhost/trongate/demo

You now have a working module that reads from the database, displays records, validates input, and inserts and deletes data.