ASP.NET vs PHP: Which one to Choose for Web Development?

1. Introduction

When it comes to web app development projects, the most challenging task is to choose the right technology stack. There are various programming languages and web frameworks available in the market for this, but the choice depends on the ongoing project development requirements. Two of the most popular web development technologies that fulfill the majority of the web development project’s needs in general are ASP.NET and PHP. And that is why there is always a conflict about which to choose. 

Besides, there is a growing demand to have a progressive web app that can offer user engagement and also facilitates the development process. In this case, businesses often look to hire PHP developers in India for their web development project which offers all the required features to make an app progressive and it is possible with these two programming languages. Therefore in this blog, we will define important details about these technologies and also shed light on ASP.NET vs PHP comparison, which can help you to make the right choice.

2. Brief Overview about PHP and ASP.NET

Since the inception of PHP in 1994, Hypertext Preprocessor often known as PHP was created to enhance web development procedures. PHP is used in web content management systems as well as frameworks by using a command-line interface embedded into HTML code. Other than programming tasks, the programming language is used in graphical applications and drone control, this is all because of its comprehensive bunch of features.

Facebook, Wikipedia, WordPress.com, Yahoo! Tumblr, and MailChimp are some of the known great websites built using the PHP programming language.

1. PHP Advantages

1. It is an Open-Source Programming language.
2. Supports tons of Databases
3. Speeds up the custom web application development. 
4. Being independent in nature, PHP runs on most of the platforms
5. No additional code required
6. Compatible with Microsoft  web servers like IIS and APACHE
7. Low development and maintenance cost with high performance and reliability.

ASP.NET on the other hand was developed by Microsoft. Popularly known as a server-side web development framework, the web framework provides the best possible assistance in the creation of dynamic web solutions, web applications, and web-based scripts. Mainly written in the server-side scripting languages such as .NET and Visual Basic. 

It acts as a strong foundation for numerous websites such as StackOverflow, Microsoft, GoDaddy, DELL, Visual Studio, WildTangent, Diply.com, TacoBell.com and many more.

2. ASP.NET Advantages

1. The pure Server-side technology executes at a faster pace than interpreted code. 
2. Provides full support for XML, CSS, and other new as well as established web standards. 
3. Safety and security can be ensured due to the incorporation of built-in Windows authentication and per-application configuration. 
4. You get to choose the scripting language that applies the best to your application. All due to its language-independent nature.  
5. Desktop applications are easy to deploy
6.  ASP.Net and HTML, together with generate dynamic websites smoothly 
7. With the help of ASP.NET common language runtime, all processes can be closely monitored and managed. Also, handling requests with your web applications becomes easy.

3. Why Both are Great at Web Development?

To succeed in the market, maintaining a digital presence has become very crucial in 2022. Though social media gives some attention but creating a brand image without an official web page is next to impossible. By doing this, nothing can stop you from gaining as much traction as possible. 

Right from web design to programming, content creation, network security tasks, and server-side & client-side scripting, this is what web development is all about. Most web developers make their programming choices between PHP, ASP.NET, Ruby, C#, Perl, Java, C/C++, Python, or ColdFusion. 

Further below we would like to mention a few factors where PHP and .NET score more for web development.

1. To capture the audience’s interest, fast website loading speed is extremely important so here PHP and .NET ensure better performance along with caching services and native optimization.  
2. Surviving in this competitive era is not easy, therefore more and more PHP development companies emphasize cutting down on web development time and cost. 
3. Both PHP and .NET comprise active community support featuring skilled, experienced, and dedicated developers.    
4. When it comes to the web development process, things seem like a cakewalk. Due to decipherable syntax, the code can be changed and modified without any hassle. 
5. Both PHP and ASP.NET are secured, preventing attackers from gaining unauthorized access to your website’s data through validating user input and sanitization techniques.

4. ASP.NET vs PHP: Major Differences

You can use various web technologies such as PHP, .Net, Ruby on Rails, Java, or Python. But, PHP and .NET are the most widely used tech stack in the web development market. According to the research, PHP and ASP.NET hold the lion’s share of the web technologies market..

There is no denying the fact that both technologies assure nothing less than a successful venture. The only question is which platform to choose between the best ones.

1. Platform Dependency

PHP is a platform-independent programming language that can run on any open-source platform, such as Windows, Linux, macOS X, and UNIX. ASP.NET is a platform-dependent framework that runs only on the paid Microsoft platform. It is one of the major reasons why the PHP audience is so large and the popularity of PHP is much greater than ASP.NET.

2. Popularity

The popularity of PHP and  ASP.NET has a huge difference. Here is the graphical representation that has clearly mentioned that PHP has more popularity compared to ASP.

3. Security

You can see a huge difference in the security provided by both PHP and ASP.NET. Both platforms provide robust security features for the web development however ASP.NET has in-built features such as SQL injection that automatically works for you whereas PHP only provides you with the third party tools.

So to choose between PHP and ASP.NET based on security, then it is recommended to choose the .NET framework. The PHP developers can use a tool if they wish to structure their PHP applications securely. Unfortunately, many PHP developers don’t care about it which leads to vulnerable web applications.

4. Cost of Development

When it comes to the development cost, there are some major differences between PHP and ASP.NET. As we all know, PHP is an open-source framework and can be run on any platform. Additionally, you’re not required to bear any extra cost for the additional server to work as the backup for clustering or load-distributing purposes.

ASP.NET comes free with Windows OS. But if you’re using a Microsoft server, you might have to pay a considerable cost for a Microsoft license. Despite this, the Microsoft SQL Server also comes with a high licensing fee. All future upgrades of .Net platform and databases also incur costs on a regular basis. 

5. Speed & Performance

Like we said before, speed is an extremely crucial factor for the development process. And nothing works wonders than the language you choose to code in determining the website’s overall performance. It may quite interest you to know that, comparing the performance of PHP suitable websites and ASP.NET websites can be pretty tricky as there is a thin-line difference.

In fact, both technologies possess numerous similarities such as accessing file systems, finding images, and displaying pages on a web server; both turn out to be equally equipped. In both cases, the database server, end user’s computer, and bandwidth are certain factors on which the speed of these performances rely mostly on.

6. Tools and Editors

It has been observed that instead of implementing a full-fledged Integrated Development Environment, PHP developers mostly use text editors such as VIM and NotePad++. Now what happens when you prefer to work with an IDE while using PHP, you are bound to get strong support from editors such as Eclipse, which is available free of cost. Also, PHP web development is easy to learn as it incorporates a few lines of compiled code that you need to work upon. There are also a lot of free PHP code editors available.

Whereas ASP.NET is backed up by a variety of IDEs but it needs to be used with Microsoft Visual Studio. Unlike PHP, it is not available completely free. But it does have ample features.  

7. Scalability & Support

Both .NET and PHP are extremely scalable languages.  If you want to take a crack at developing with Drupal, then PHP is what one must be considering and why not .NET, you may ask? The answer is pretty simple actually; it’s the lowest learning curve that restrains web developers from choosing ASP.Net.

All you have to do is hire dedicated PHP developers that know how to handle clunky languages like PHP and deliver highly scalable apps using a web application framework.

8. Language Performance

The significance of performance is no longer limited to the gaming industry. However, a lot of comparisons have been made where PHP has been declared as the clear winner as it is faster at the core level. These days the modern hardware has grown so fast that core language speed isn’t relevant anymore. If so, everyone would be programming ASSEMBLY- a low-level language that can communicate directly within the hardware.

As a result, several new languages have been developed to take advantage of them, including C#.

After having years of experience, PHP developers here have realized that the performance of the language itself isn’t what makes a program run faster or slower but it is the way any code is written and architecture that determines how well it will perform.

9. Fixing Problems

PHP works wonders when it comes to error handling. Now whenever you develop a web application, you are bound to encounter numerous problems or bugs. The question is how do you fix or overcome these issues that pop up while delivering the project on time.

When fixing up the issue, if you are using the PHP web application framework you may find it clears up and refreshes to help professionals to start things over. Also, an issue with one request will never interfere with another. This also means working simultaneously with others is possible. 

With ASP.NET, you might get ease knowing where the issue arises from and how to get rid of it but for that, you require to seek a little help from the vast community.  

5. Popular Websites Built Using ASP.NET and PHP

As we discussed earlier, PHP is ranked top compared to ASP.NET to develop websites. Here there are two lists to compare ASP.NET vs PHP websites:

Websites created using PHP:

• Facebook
• Mailchimp
• Wikipedia
• Tumblr
• WordPress.com
• iStockPhoto
• Flickr
• Yahoo!

Websites created using ASP.NET:

• StackOverflow
• TacoBell.com
• Microsoft
• Diply.com
• GoDaddy
• WildTangent
• DELL
• Visual Studio

6. The Deciding Factor

Both ASP.NET and PHP development have their benefits and some limitations. What you have to do as a company is to address them from a different perspective. Also, make sure that all the requirements are divided into business and technology aspects.

Consequently, to the raised ASP.NET vs PHP question, it is not wise enough to seek out one definite answer. The final choice is always defined in accordance with the company’s available resources and outlined requirements such as scalable, quick in performance, secured, smooth functionality, pleasing aesthetics, supports seamless integration, and cost-effectiveness.

Take a moment to outline the project needs and when given the business case and required functionality that suits your taste, you will know what you must choose.

7. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is ASP.NET similar to PHP?

PHP is a programming language, whereas ASP.NET does not belong to the category of programming languages. For ASP.NET, you can use VB.NET or C#..

2. Is ASP.NET core faster than PHP?

To begin with, one common misconception regarding website performance and speed is that the language you prefer to code defines your website’s overall performance. In actuality, there is a minor difference between the performance of PHP websites and ASP.NET websites.

3. Is PHP more secure than PHP?

Security is one of the major differences between PHP and ASP.NET. Both the technologies provide security features to the development talent, but ASP.NET has some powerful built-in security features such as SQL injection. So security-wise, ASP.Net is the right choice for your project. 

4. Is ASP.Net good for developing Dynamic Web Pages?

ASP.Net comprises both frontend and backend languages. For instance, ASP.NET is used as a backend and C# & VB.NET are used for developing dynamic web pages.

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