TicketHub

2014-era Russian osTicket fork migrated to PHP 8.4 + MySQL 8.0 — with Kanban, REST API, inventory, and Docker on top

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By the numbers

Query speedup

DB indices added

Test classes

PHPStan level

The Problem

What I was solving

The original osTicket v1.6 codebase (a Russian fork) barely ran on PHP 7. Modern browsers tripped over Bootstrap 3 layouts, the admin panel had no API, and simple dashboard queries took 2-3 seconds because there were almost no indices. Anyone wanting to host a ticketing system in 2025 had to fight the code before even configuring SMTP.

My Approach

How I built it

Rebuilt in three passes. First: migrated to PHP 8.4 with strict types, swapped mysqli for PDO with prepared statements everywhere, and ran PHPStan at level 7 over the whole codebase. Second: replaced Bootstrap 3 with Tailwind CSS — rewrote templates component-by-component while keeping all backend behavior intact. Third: added 28 database indices informed by EXPLAIN ANALYZE on real production queries, and wrapped everything in Docker for single-command deploy. Wrote 50+ PHPUnit test classes covering business logic before touching SMTP/POP3/IMAP wiring.

Tech choices

PHP 8.4— Strict types + readonly classes caught 40+ bugs that the PHP 7 codebase had silently lived with for years.
Tailwind CSS— Swapping Bootstrap 3 for Tailwind cut CSS bundle from 180KB to 22KB and made dark mode a 10-line diff.
PHPUnit 10.5— 50+ test classes ran under 4 seconds with the new Attribute-based API — fast enough for pre-commit hooks.
Docker— Single docker compose up spins PHP-FPM, MySQL 8.0, and Nginx. No more "works on my machine".

Outcome

What came out of it

Dashboard query times dropped from 2-3 seconds to 150-200ms — a 92.5% reduction. PHPStan level 7 clean across the repo. A full REST API with Bearer token auth opened the door for integrations (Slack bots, Zapier). Ships as a Docker Compose stack that spins up in under 30 seconds. Knowledge base with full-text search and CAPTCHA protects the client portal. Admin side now has Kanban boards, a calendar view, and time tracking — modern features the old code never had.