Best practices for building a production-ready Dockerfile for PHP applications are essential to ensure the security, reliability, and performance of your application when deployed to production. To build a reliable Docker image, select a specific base image that matches your requirements, use environment variables for configuration, consider PHP FPM vs. Nginx/Apache, disable unnecessary debug logs/error reporting in production, run your PHP container as a non-root user, set up PHP container health checks, restrict the number of ports you use, regularly update dependencies, restrict container capabilities to the minimum needed, and use multistage builds for build/runtime separation. Additionally, using Snyk can help identify and resolve vulnerabilities in your Docker image, making it easier to maintain a secure and reliable application. By following these best practices and leveraging tools like Snyk, you can ensure your PHP application is properly secured and deployed to production with confidence.