Is core PHP still relevant in 2025? I am not talking frameworks Laravel, Symfony

I have been searching on sites like freelancer.com for projects that contain PHP. Some projects give to understand that they are talking about core PHP(but I think they are talking about frameworks), and some projects do talk about core PHP(they mention it specifically). But I look on google and reddit and find a lot of people saying that core PHP is dead. I think I found one article saying that it is relevant and not going anywhere. So my question is, is it okay to learn core PHP and MySQL(and I am not talking about PHP frameworks like Laravel or Symfony)? Especially in terms for freelancing. I am aware of RESTful APIs and using cURL and maybe a front end with vanilla JS. But will I be making a mistake developing core PHP web apps? I find it more easier and more productive when using core PHP compared to Laravel or Django or Flask for Python or Express for NodeJS. A lot easier. So do any of you still use core PHP either freelancing or for work in 2025?