1--- 2layout: default 3permalink: / 4title: Introduction 5--- 6 7Introduction 8============ 9 10[![Author](http://img.shields.io/badge/author-@reinink-blue.svg?style=flat-square)](https://twitter.com/reinink) 11[![Source Code](http://img.shields.io/badge/source-league/plates-blue.svg?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/thephpleague/plates) 12[![Latest Version](https://img.shields.io/github/release/thephpleague/plates.svg?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/thephpleague/plates/releases) 13[![Software License](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-brightgreen.svg?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/thephpleague/plates/blob/master/LICENSE)<br /> 14[![Build Status](https://img.shields.io/travis/thephpleague/plates/master.svg?style=flat-square)](https://travis-ci.org/thephpleague/plates) 15[![Coverage Status](https://img.shields.io/scrutinizer/coverage/g/thephpleague/plates.svg?style=flat-square)](https://scrutinizer-ci.com/g/thephpleague/plates/code-structure) 16[![Quality Score](https://img.shields.io/scrutinizer/g/thephpleague/plates.svg?style=flat-square)](https://scrutinizer-ci.com/g/thephpleague/plates) 17[![Total Downloads](https://img.shields.io/packagist/dt/league/plates.svg?style=flat-square)](https://packagist.org/packages/league/plates) 18 19## About 20 21Plates is a native PHP template system that's fast, easy to use and easy to extend. It's inspired by the excellent [Twig](http://twig.sensiolabs.org/) template engine and strives to bring modern template language functionality to native PHP templates. Plates is designed for developers who prefer to use native PHP templates over compiled template languages, such as Twig or Smarty. 22 23## Highlights 24 25- Native PHP templates, no new [syntax](/templates/syntax/) to learn 26- Plates is a template system, not a template language 27- Plates encourages the use of existing PHP functions 28- Increase code reuse with template [layouts](/templates/layouts/) and [inheritance](/templates/inheritance/) 29- Template [folders](/engine/folders/) for grouping templates into namespaces 30- [Data](/templates/data/#preassigned-and-shared-data) sharing across templates 31- Preassign [data](/templates/data/#preassigned-and-shared-data) to specific templates 32- Built-in [escaping](/templates/escaping/) helpers 33- Easy to extend using [functions](/engine/functions/) and [extensions](/engine/extensions/) 34- Framework-agnostic, will work with any project 35- Decoupled design makes templates easy to test 36- Composer ready and PSR-2 compliant 37 38## Questions? 39 40Plates was created by [Jonathan Reinink](https://twitter.com/reinink). Submit issues to [Github](https://github.com/thephpleague/plates/issues). 41