.NET vs. PHP

You might be interested in using either PHP or .NET for your development project, but are having a hard time making up your mind on which is the better choice. We’ve created this article to give you the pros and cons of .NET and PHP, so that you can decide which is the right technology for your specific needs. 

While there is a large number of blogs and articles containing information on .NET and PHP, they’re often biased or specifically promoting one over the other. You’ll find none of that here – just information to help you make an informed choice. 

.NET

Background 

.NET’s full name is ASP.NET. It’s a paid licensed product that was derived from Microsoft’s Active Server Pages and is used for web application development. 

First released in January 2002, ASP.NET isn’t just a web development platform, but also offers its users a comprehensive software infrastructure, programming model, and other services that are key in building mobile or computer web apps. 

Useful facts

• .NET is language independent since it’s built on Common Language Runtime – developers can use any .NET-supported language to create .NET apps.
  
  
• The two most common languages are C# and VB.NET. C# was introduced together with the .NET framework, and VB.NET is based on Visual Basic.
  
  
• The ASP.NET framework supports HTML, CSS, and JavaScript extremely well.
  
  
• .NET is more focused on security and functionalities than PHP.
  
  
• .NET has a far smaller developer community than PHP, and so resources are not as easily available.
  
  
• Developers are alerted to mistakes in coding before compilation, and so .NET is highly secure as well as less prone to bugs.
  
  
• This language isn’t as easily customizable as PHP.
  
  
• .NET can be challenging to learn, understand, and use for a beginner or less-experienced developer. 

Best/common uses

ASP.NET works well to create large to medium-sized enterprise applications.
The most common use for .NET is the creation of dynamic web pages because it’s a fast and lightweight way to combine server code with HTML. With .NET, developers are able to create graceful sites that are up to the latest web standards and also easily add videos and links to social media sites.
Developers can write any type of app using any style with .NET because it’s such a robust framework.

PHP

Background 

PHP (or Hypertext PreProcessor) was created by Rasmus Lerdarf and is a general-purpose server-side scripting language. It started as a small open-source project, but evolved over the years to have millions of users worldwide. 

PHP is an open-source product that’s available to anyone free of charge and is also used for web application development, but only of small to medium-sized web apps. 

Useful facts

• PHP code can be integrated efficiently with its many popular databases, and the code is most often processed by a PHP interpreter that’s implemented as a module in the webserver.
  This webserver will combine both executed and interpreted PHP code (which can be of any type, even images).
  
  
• Execution is even faster and smoother when compiled as an Apache module when using Unix. PHP also supports a good number of other major protocols like IMAP, POP3, and LDAP.
  
  
• Multiple-tier development is possible with the PHP ecosystem. With so many free and open-source libraries in its source-distribution, users can access FTP servers and a good number of other database servers.
  
  
• There are various functions that will be familiar to C programmers.
  
  
• PHP is more focused on client-facing user interfaces.
  
  
• Since PHP is open-source, developers enjoy a large community with plenty of libraries and support.
  
  
• There are less built-in security features in PHP than .NET.
  
  
• PHP isn’t really suitable for desktop applications (too slow).
  
  
• PHP allows for customization.
  
  
• Bugs more common than in .NET as PHP has no option for letting the developer know about bad code pre-compilation.
  
  
• PHP is easier to learn, understand, and use than .NET for beginner or less-experienced developers. 

Best/common uses

PHP’s most common and effective use is the creation of small to medium-sized web applications. It’s best for less experienced developers as the learning curve associated with it isn’t huge, and it’s quite an intuitive programming experience.
If you’re concerned about the scalability of your project, both .NET and PHP are great choices.

Conclusion

.NET and PHP have different uses and are best suited for different things. A great way to make your final decision would be to ask yourself a few questions:

• What does your existing talent prefer to code in? 
• What are your programmers best at coding in? 
• Does your company culture lean toward one language or another already?
• Will your developers be able to find the support they need for either language?

We hope that this article has helped you to make a decision on whether to use .NET or PHP for your project. Whichever you choose, you can rest assured that here at NerdCloud, we can do both.
Our developers are well-versed and can handle projects in any programming language you’d like, and we’re here to help see that our work together is a success. Get in touch with us today for more info on how we can help you, or if you need any more guidance on choosing between .NET and PHP.