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Hire Top 17 CodeIgniter Developers

codeigniter developers - Hire Top 17 CodeIgniter Developers

CodeIgniter has a thriving community of developers who push the framework forward through core contributions, innovative projects, and knowledge sharing.

Below we highlight 17 of the world’s top CodeIgniter developers who are actively working with CodeIgniter today. These individuals shine through their open-source contributions, leadership in tech companies and startups, educational content, and even competitive accolades. From CodeIgniter core maintainers to influential bloggers and champions in the community, each has made a significant impact on the framework’s ecosystem.

  1. Ben Edmunds

  2. Lonnie Ezell

  3. Kenji Suzuki

  4. Alex Lancer

  5. M. Khalid Junaid

  6. Abdulla Nilam

  7. Chris Kacerguis

  8. John Paul Balandan

  9. Mat Whitney

  10. John Skoumbourdis

  11. Johannes Gamperl

  12. Andreas Pfotenhauer

  13. Kevin Morssink

  14. Michał Śniatała

  15. Sanjay Kumar

  16. David Wosnitza

  17. Alain Rivest

Now, let’s delve deeper into their remarkable journeys and lasting impacts.

Ben Edmunds

YouTube Video

Nationality: American

Ben is a long-time contributor known for developing Ion Auth, the lightweight authentication library that became a de facto standard in CodeIgniter apps.

As a security-focused engineer (and former CTO in industry), he has ensured CodeIgniter projects follow best practices. Ben also co-hosts the popular PHP Town Hall podcast and has written on secure PHP development. He served on the interim CodeIgniter Council guiding the framework’s direction. With multiple open-source projects and a leadership role in the PHP community, Ben bridges practical coding with community education.

Lonnie Ezell

CodeIgniter 4 isn’t just a new version — it’s a fresh foundation for the next decade of PHP development.

Nationality: American

Lonnie is the driving force behind CodeIgniter 4’s modern rewrite and currently serves as its lead developer.

Over the past few years, he rebuilt CodeIgniter from scratch to bring it up to date with PHP best practices. An active open-source advocate, Lonnie also created Bonfire, an application starter for CodeIgniter, demonstrating his passion for tools that help other developers. He regularly shares insights via his books and tutorials, and even runs a Patreon to support CodeIgniter development. Under his leadership, CodeIgniter has seen a resurgence with new features and an engaged community.

Kenji Suzuki

Nationality: Japanese

Hailing from Japan, Kenji is one of the most prolific CodeIgniter 4 contributors.

In 2023, the CodeIgniter project lead singled out @kenjis for “tireless work on the main repo and forums,” noting the project wouldn’t be the same without him. Kenji co-authored the CodeIgniter Testing Guide to help developers write better tests, and has built many example apps and tutorials. He also maintains CI4-compatible testing tools and upgrade guides. Kenji’s dedication – from answering questions to submitting countless pull requests – exemplifies the volunteer spirit driving CodeIgniter’s development.

Alex Lancer

Alex Lancer - Hire Top 17 CodeIgniter Developers

Nationality: Greek

Alex Lancer (Alexandros) is a professional web developer from Athens, Greece, specializing in CodeIgniter 4.

He has made a name through his educational content — Alex runs a YouTube series “CodeIgniter 4 From Scratch” and other CI4 tutorial videos with thousands of views. As a freelancer, he builds custom websites with best practices in CodeIgniter. Alex is passionate about turning complex problems into intuitive solutions, a skill he showcases in both client projects and teaching. His contributions help new developers worldwide learn CodeIgniter, making him an influential community figure.

M. Khalid Junaid

Nationality: Pakistani

Khalid Junaid is renowned for his contributions on Stack Overflow, where he has answered hundreds of CodeIgniter questions, earning over 64k reputation points in the CodeIgniter tag alone.

Based in Karachi, Pakistan, Khalid is a senior PHP developer adept in multiple frameworks. His expertise in CodeIgniter spans a decade of building web applications and helping others debug theirs. He has been acknowledged as a top CodeIgniter answerer globally, often providing solutions that are referenced by the community. Outside of Q&A forums, Khalid works on enterprise CodeIgniter projects and mentors junior developers in adopting efficient coding practices.

Abdulla Nilam

Nationality: Sri Lankan

Abdulla has the distinction of being the first Sri Lankan to earn gold badges in PHP, Laravel, and CodeIgniter on Stack Overflow.

An active developer now based in Dubai, he demonstrates exceptional expertise across the PHP ecosystem. On Stack Overflow, Abdulla has provided over 1,000 answers, many in the CodeIgniter tag, helping developers solve problems big and small. He also forks and improves open-source projects (as seen on his GitHub). Abdulla’s broad experience with frameworks and his willingness to share knowledge make him a respected voice in the community. When he’s not coding or on forums, he engineers web solutions for enterprise clients in the Middle East.

Chris Kacerguis

Chris Kacerguis - Hire Top 17 CodeIgniter Developers

Nationality: American

Chris Kacerguis took the baton from Phil Sturgeon to maintain and improve the popular CodeIgniter REST Server library.

This add-on made it easy for developers to build RESTful APIs in their CodeIgniter applications, and under Chris’s stewardship it became the go-to solution (with ~5k stars on GitHub). Chris ensured the library stayed updated and compatible with newer PHP versions and even with CodeIgniter 4 (via a community fork). Professionally, Chris has served as a CTO and senior engineer, bringing real-world needs into his open-source work. By maintaining the REST API package, he helped many companies adopt CodeIgniter as a backend for mobile and SPA applications. His contributions exemplify solving common problems for the community through open source.

John Paul Balandan

Nationality: Filipino

Paul (often known by his username paulbalandan) is a core team developer from the Philippines who has played a key role in CodeIgniter 4’s evolution.

He spearheaded the CodeIgniter 4.1 release that transitioned the framework to modern coding standards (PSR compliance). Paul has contributed across the codebase – from the new Shield authentication package to refining the framework’s testing and quality tools. With a background as a CPA and developer, he brings meticulous attention to detail. Paul’s leadership in recent releases has been pivotal in keeping CodeIgniter 4 modern, secure, and robust.

Mat Whitney

Nationality: American

Mat (Matthew) Whitney is an American developer who was part of CodeIgniter’s Council guiding the transition from CI3 to CI4.

An open-source contributor and author, Mat has written about CodeIgniter best practices and co-authored a testing handbook with Kenji Suzuki. On the council, he helped steer development priorities and reviewed community contributions. Mat is also known for creating helper libraries and advocating for developer-friendly improvements in CI4. His background as an author of tech guides underscores his commitment to educating the community while improving the framework.

John Skoumbourdis

John Skoumbourdis - Hire Top 17 CodeIgniter Developers

Nationality: Greek

John is the developer behind Grocery CRUD, one of the most famous add-ons in the CodeIgniter ecosystem.

Grocery CRUD is an automatic CRUD generator for CodeIgniter that significantly speeds up creating admin interfaces. John released it in 2010 and it quickly gained adoption for its simplicity. Over the years, he improved it and even launched a pro version. The library has been kept current (the latest v3.1 supports CodeIgniter 4 and even Laravel), illustrating John’s commitment to modernizing it. Through Grocery CRUD, John has indirectly helped thousands of developers deliver projects faster. He remains actively involved via the Grocery CRUD community forums and continues to update the toolset for new framework versions and PHP releases.

Johannes Gamperl

Nationality: German

Johannes was instrumental in rejuvenating the CodeIgniter project during its handover to the community.

A long-time German developer using CodeIgniter, he volunteered to join the interim council in 2014. Johannes helped get CodeIgniter “back on track” by contributing to the new website and coordinating feedback. He also managed German translations and community outreach, bridging non-English speaking CI users to the core team. Known by the handle “Rufnex”, Johannes had earlier created utilities like a User Guide Table of Contents generator. His friendly presence on IRC and forums earned him respect. Today, Johannes continues to build websites (also dabbling in Django and Symfony), but he remains a supporter of CodeIgniter and often lends a hand on community forums.

Andreas Pfotenhauer

Nationality: German

Andreas, often going by “pfote” online, was another key member of CodeIgniter’s interim leadership.

He was a familiar figure on the Freenode IRC channel #codeigniter, regarded as a “wise friend” by peers. Andreas joined the council to steer development of CI3/CI4 and contributed numerous ideas and bug fixes. He also maintained a fork integrating the Monolog logging library with CodeIgniter for more advanced logging options. Professionally, Andreas works with Ypsilon.NET AG and has used CodeIgniter in enterprise projects. His advocacy for modernizing CodeIgniter (like embracing Composer) influenced the project’s direction. Today he continues coding (in PHP and .NET) and remains an open-source enthusiast, with CodeIgniter still close to his heart.

Kevin Morssink

Kevin Morssink - Hire Top 17 CodeIgniter Developers

Nationality: Dutch

Kevin is a security-conscious developer who joined CodeIgniter’s dedicated Security Team to help identify and patch vulnerabilities.

A resident of the Netherlands, he contributed security fixes and improvements especially during the early CI4 releases. Kevin’s keen eye for security holes made CodeIgniter safer for all users. He also engages with the community to promote secure coding practices, often emphasizing the importance of proper input validation and updating libraries. Outside of security, Kevin has been a long-time CodeIgniter user in various web projects and shares his knowledge via community Q&As. His behind-the-scenes work – quietly fixing bugs before they become problems – has been invaluable to maintaining CodeIgniter’s reputation as a secure framework.

Michał Śniatała

Nationality: Polish

Michał is a Polish developer who played a key part in CodeIgniter’s transition period.

He provided both design insight and code contributions during the CI3 to CI4 overhaul. Michał is particularly known for maintaining translations of CodeIgniter’s system messages and for developing plugins to extend CI4’s capabilities (like packages for content translation). His work on making the framework more accessible globally has been invaluable. Michał also stepped up as a forum moderator/gatekeeper around 2015, helping to manage community input. His blend of front-end design sense and back-end skill made him a versatile asset to the CodeIgniter team.

Sanjay Kumar

Sanjay Kumar - Hire Top 17 CodeIgniter Developers

Nationality: Indian

Sanjay is an educator and developer who founded Online Web Tutor, a platform offering courses in PHP, CodeIgniter, and other web technologies.

Based in India, Sanjay has trained thousands of students in CodeIgniter through step-by-step video tutorials and articles. His approach often starts from absolute basics and goes up to building RESTful APIs and advanced concepts – making him a go-to instructor for beginners. Online Web Tutor’s YouTube channel and Medium publications are full of CodeIgniter 3 and 4 lessons, reflecting Sanjay’s mission to “keep learning and sharing.” By grooming a new generation of CodeIgniter developers, he ensures the community’s continuity. Sanjay also keeps himself updated by actively working on client projects, which helps him teach practical, real-world uses of CodeIgniter.

David Wosnitza

Nationality: German

David was part of the trio of German contributors (with Johannes and Andreas) who assisted in CodeIgniter’s revival.

A veteran CodeIgniter user, David lent his expertise in both front-end and back-end to improve CodeIgniter’s website and forums during the transition. He’s described as a “long term CodeIgniter user and abuser,” highlighting his deep experience. David provided a user’s perspective on the council, ensuring that enhancements remained developer-friendly. In the community, he’s known under the moniker “Davcon” and has shared many CI plugins and tips over the years. He currently develops software solutions in Germany, still choosing CodeIgniter for projects that need a light yet reliable framework.

Alain Rivest

Nationality: Canadian

Alain Rivest, better known by his alias Includebeer, is a Montreal-based developer who runs an informative CodeIgniter blog. A member of the CodeIgniter forums since 2014, Alain has contributed over 1,000 posts and earned a reputation for clear, helpful answers.

On his blog IncludeBeer.com, he publishes tutorials about CodeIgniter (among other web technologies), aiming to make difficult concepts accessible. Alain was invited to join the forum moderation team due to his consistent help to others. He has also built open-source CodeIgniter extensions and shared them on GitHub. Whether it’s a guide on setting up CI4 or tips on using JavaScript with CodeIgniter, Alain’s content has benefited many in the community. He exemplifies the passionate independent developer who strengthens the ecosystem through knowledge sharing.

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

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