With PHP gaining more and more features, are PHP extensions still necessary? Beyond just accessing system libraries, extensions unlock capabilities that pure PHP code still can’t replicate. Imagine defining custom behaviors for operators, enabling intuitive syntax through operator overloading, or tailoring equality checks with flexible object comparisons—these are things only possible in an extension. Extensions even allow objects to be cast to scalar types like int or string, adding versatility to how they’re used. In this talk, we’ll dive into some of the coolest things extensions make possible, pushing PHP beyond its usual boundaries. And yes, we’ll also explore when extensions can be taken a little too far, showing that just because something can be done doesn’t always mean it should be!