This is the most discussing topic among developers as LAMP professionals do advocacy for PHP and .net taster do it for .net. Well, so which one is better in terms of career building, and capability. In this post we will have a look into capability of each language (not practically).
First I would like to clear that comparing asp.net with PHP is illogical. asp.net is a framework where PHP is a language. So, logically we should compare language with language and not a framework with language. Asp.net framework supports many languages and the famous one is C#.
In simple terms, whenever we pick any item, we look for its standardization(so that we can sure about quality), support from vendor, and easiness with power. When we pick Microsoft based technologies, we get everything. Microsoft is promoting HTML5 to all its users(it stands automatically that Silverlight is being demoted) though HTML5 is expected to be finalized by the end of year 2014. Even it is shipping Silverlight with 10 years of support and meanwhile saying them to migrate to HTML5 if possible. Isn’t it a good symbol for development industry.
Interestingly, if you see over the world specially for websites, you will find around 39% market share of PHP while asp.net has 22%. I have generated a report for your ready reference, -
In fact, PHP is the most preferred language by small scale development industry or small companies who are trying to establish their business. They prefer it because they make good save on their projects as they don’t have to invest so much from development to hosting. They can develop on Linux machine and host at very cheap rate. And this is the reason of popularity. (excuse me big giants who are using PHP). I am not demoting or promoting a language here. Being a programmer, I would never set a barrier for myself to be stick with a certain technology. So, its my personal view and not for advertise prospective of any.
So, lets compare them -
| |
asp.net based development |
PHP based development |
| IDE Available from Vendor |
Yes
Commercial as well Free as Express editions |
No
Search & find any Open Source or paid tool |
| IDEs |
Visual Studio |
?
Notepad+, etc |
| Language type |
Object oriented development |
procedural script oriented |
| Languages Availability for Development |
C#, VB.net, F#, C++ etc |
only PHP |
| Framework |
asp.net |
many open source, popular one is Zend Framework which was launched last year in Sept 2012 |
| Faster |
Yes++
because compiled code runs more faster than interpreted one. |
Yes
I have seen most of peoples take side of PHP by giving example of Facebook, but kindly note PHP is not only that is used to build Facebook.
Oftenly, people say that it doesn’t recompile whole code for a single line change of code. Agree, but, this whole code recompilation(as Microsoft framework do) is good to make you host error free code.
You may have hear that PHP generate less page size than asp.net pages (as there is no evil ViewState) so it makes faster delivery to user browser. Oh really? then why not to use MVC? And even if asp.net used wisely then generated viewstate size doesn’t make so hurdle and no significant differences are left with php!
|
| Hosing |
slightly higher cost than open source |
very low cost |
| Hosting –Database additional |
very high cost for MS SQL
(You can use same open source DB with asp.net and so it is also very low cost) |
very less for open source DB and almost free |
| Hosting – Platform |
MS Windows environment |
any platform++ |
| Server side scripting |
? |
PHP |
| Database support |
Any |
Any+
PHP has high level of flexibility to connect any database very easily |
| |
|
|
| Forum help |
Yes
Microsoft itself runs many forums and support along with others |
Yes
PHP has more developing hands so many forum helps are available |
| Easy Deployment |
Yes |
Yes+
Less time than asp.net based applications |
| Faster file/data access |
Yes |
Yes
It uses ext4 file system (mostly used in posix based OS like Linux) which is consider to be better than Windows file system NTFS. (I am not agree as I didn’t got any proof) |
| Upgrade |
Languages - Free
IDE – Free as Express version and paid for commercial
.net Framework, CLR, MS SQL Express are also Free
|
Free
(here I would like to say, commercial version are chargeable. may most of you not agree with me) |
| Vendor Support |
Yes++ |
No |
| CMS richness |
Yes |
Yes++
Many more than asp.net based |
| Extendibility |
High |
Less |
Hope you would not change your mind for PHP by seeing above market share! Getting a job in PHP development is easy because there are most of startup level companies, but pay package is comparatively less than other like Java and .net.
Your view is welcome, please comment :) :P