The scripting engine that powers PHP is called Zend Engine 2.
The correct answer to the question “What is the name of the scripting engine in PHP?” is the Zend Engine. The Zend Engine is the open-source scripting engine that interprets PHP code. It was originally developed by Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski while they were students at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Zend Engine powers PHP and is responsible for parsing, compiling, and executing PHP scripts. It provides the core functionality of the PHP language and manages resources such as memory allocation and garbage collection.