From the first meetings of the Club des Devs in Poitiers to the Forum PHP and AFUP Days: a look back at over ten years of encounters and involvement in the PHP ecosystem.

At Store Commander, our daily work is closely linked to the web development and open-source ecosystem.

Behind the tools we develop, there are, of course, technologies and lines of code. But above all, there are women and men who share their experiences, challenge their practices, and evolve their profession together.

This is the dynamic we find within AFUP, the French Association of PHP Users, a community in which our involvement today is both national and local, in Poitiers.

AFUP: Much More Than Just PHP Events

Founded in 2001, AFUP helps promote PHP and its ecosystem while uniting the professionals who bring them to life.

Notably, it is behind two events well known to PHP developers: the Forum PHP, held every autumn, and AFUP Day, held in the spring across several French cities.

But AFUP also consists of local branches that organize meetups and other gatherings throughout the year, allowing developers to meet, discuss their challenges, and discover new practices.

A philosophy that speaks to us at Store Commander: learning from others, sharing experience, and staying curious.

In Poitiers, a Dynamic PHP Community

Poitiers is one of the cities with an active AFUP branch, with meetings organized since 2017.

In May 2025, the city hosted its first-ever AFUP Day. This inaugural Poitiers edition was sold out weeks before the event.

A great success and a sign that you don't need to be in Paris or a major metropolis to sustain a dynamic tech community!

Store Commander, Sponsor of AFUP Day Poitiers 2025

Store Commander chose to support this first Poitiers edition by becoming a sponsor of the event.

On May 24, 2025, developers, speakers, and PHP enthusiasts gathered at Cobalt, in the heart of Poitiers city center, for a day of conferences and experience sharing.

Architecture, Symfony, testing, security, machine learning, artificial intelligence... the program perfectly illustrated the diversity of subjects currently shaping the developer profession.

Beyond sponsoring an event, for us, it was mostly about contributing to the life of the local digital ecosystem that we are part of.

A Local Commitment That Lasts

Our ties with the Poitiers developer community are not new.

Since 2013, we were participating in the meetings of the Club des Devs, organized at the time within the SPN (Network of Digital Professionals).

The goal was already close to that of today's AFUP meetings: stepping away from daily projects, meeting other developers, and freely sharing experiences and best practices.

This involvement has continued over the years.

In 2025, Patrick joined the association that participates in organizing AFUP events in Poitiers in an individual capacity.

On May 28, 2026, Store Commander also hosted an AFUP Poitiers meetup in its offices, focused notably on tokens, embeddings, and artificial intelligence.

And since September 2026, Patrick has been part of the team—still in an individual capacity—organizing local activities for AFUP Poitiers.

It's a way to shift from participant to contributor and help, at our level, maintain this local momentum.

From Poitiers Meetups to Forum PHP

Our relationship with AFUP obviously extends beyond the borders of Poitou.

The Forum PHP is one of the events followed by the Store Commander Dev team for several editions, notably alongside Mise En Prod.

Organized annually by AFUP, it brings together developers, CTOs, technical managers, and experts for two days of conferences, workshops, and extensive exchanges.

For our developers, it’s an opportunity to step out of the daily Store Commander context, discover other ways of working, and compare their practices with those of other teams.

Software architecture, security, code quality, new tools, artificial intelligence, team organization... the topics covered go far beyond just the PHP language.

And the exchanges between conferences, over coffee or after a presentation, are sometimes just as interesting as the talks themselves!

Learning, Exchanging... and Contributing

Participating in these events brings us a lot. Therefore, it seems natural for us to contribute in turn.

This can happen through attending meetings, hosting a meetup, financial support for an event like AFUP Day, or personal investment in their organization.

This logic echoes our own history: our technical environment relies heavily on open-source technologies, and our activity evolves in contact with communities like those of PHP and PrestaShop.

Supporting these ecosystems also means helping to maintain the spaces where knowledge flows, experiences are shared, and practices progress.

How About Meeting at the Next Forum PHP?

From the Club des Devs to Poitiers meetups, and from AFUP Day to Forum PHP, the common thread remains the same: meeting, learning, sharing, and contributing.

And if you had to choose one event to discover this community, Forum PHP is an excellent opportunity to meet those who bring PHP to life every day, attend very concrete experience feedback, and above all, exchange with other professionals.

👉 We recommend taking a look at the program for the next Forum PHP and coming to participate: find all the information on the event website.

On our end, we will continue to take part in these gatherings, both in Poitiers and at the national level.

So, perhaps we'll cross paths at the next Forum PHP! 😉