PHP vs. ASP.NET
These days, I am too busy in my work and I am not getting time to update my blog. One of the tasks involved is making proposals for prospective clients and you really need to do a lot of R&D before actually putting up your proposal. Recently we got some requests for proposals from a few clients and the main question in thosee proposals was which technology to recommend? Either it should be open source PHP/mySQL or ASP.NET/SQL Server. We take up projects in both.
PHP – Hypertext Pre-processor
PHP is an open source server-side scripting language that is very similar in syntax to C languages. Although originally designed to run under Linux using the Apache Web server, it has been ported to work using virtually every operating system and any standards-compliant Web server software.
In addition to these benefits, there are certain programming requirements that may make PHP an appealing choice for developers. Firstly, there are built-in libraries for the direct creation and manipulation of image and PDF documents. This means, for example, that if an application calls for dynamically-created menu images with anti-aliased text, or the exporting of pages to Acrobat format, PHP may be the ideal technology to do it.
Another situation that may make PHP the best choice of server scripting is where connecting to either mySQL or Postgres databases is required.
ASP.NET
The reason why ASP.NET is in another league compared to ASP and PHP, is that it operates on an entirely different architectural structure. The latter are interpreted scripting languages whereas .NET is a compiled framework. This means, firstly, that Web pages run much, much faster. It also means that source code is safer and more robust.
Additionally, ASP.NET introduces a new concept in Web programming – the notion of code-behind pages. With code-behind, each page of HTML is driven by its own compiled programmatical directives. Other benefits of ASP.NET are its full-featured integrated support for XML and Web services. There is also a very comprehensive range of security and cryptography libraries available to .NET, making it especially useful for ecommerce and enterprise data applications.
ASP.NET and SQL Server is better for large websites, websites storing sensitive information, corporate websites and many similar web applications. Why? Because ASP.NET is faster than any other web programming language, it’s easier to maintain the code when it comes to large websites, thanks to code-behind
PHP vs. ASP.NET
Coding time in ASP.net is faster because of the Development environment provided by Microsoft. You can get things done a lot quicker with ASP.NET because of its development enviroments (VS/VWD) and it’s server controls and easy databinding.ASP.NET pages are MUCH easier to secure than PHP-based applications. From the default login controls and methods in ASP.NET 2.0, real prepared SQL statements that prevent injection attacks, automatic cross-site scripting form input rejection.
Though the development time,in most projects they really are about even, but the smaller projects tend to lean towards PHP, while the large projects are much faster in ASP.NET.
And with all that said… For sites that are meant to be either secure, highly trafficed, large in scope, or deal with enterprise level data, PHP is not recommended. But for a home page, a small website, and a forum, sure PHP is best.
ASP.NET is Strongly Typed, Object Oriented, Sandboxed, Multi-Syntax, Component Centric, Event Driven, forms oriented, pre-compiled.
PHP is a loosely typed, objects optional, fixed syntax, component-less, runtime interpreted, structured programming model.
What I like best about PHP, is the large pool of free open source softwares available in the market, just like this wordpress blog software I am using for all my blogs.
But at the end, it all comes to your exact project requirement and client requirements and what are their plans in future. Keeping all these in mind, one should decide the technology to be used.
I am expecting some comments on this hot topic 
3 Comments
- thePizzazzy replied:
I have never worked with ASP or PHP but feel PHP is easily available sources. Whenever I want to add some feature to my blog I search for the PHP code. But I also dread using it due its fixed syntax, Once I with my favourite wordpress theme I changed some PHP code and my blog was down for one whole day. I guess I will learn PHP on my own as it is so useful for my blog.
November 22nd, 2007 at 7:52 pm. Permalink.
- jason replied:
I think as of version 3.5 with LINQ and MVC AJAX support controls etc. comparing .NET to PHP is like comparing a Ferrari to a rusty old Honda Civic.
nothing comes close to LINQ in all other languages.
PHP forces you to know Javascript as well, while all Javascript code is generted automatically in .NET
September 12th, 2008 at 2:44 am. Permalink.
- Nathan replied:
ASP supports multiple programming languages. This architecture is inherently slower and more memory intensive than PHP’s model because each ASP language compiler runs in its own process. So when ASP detects a Begin ASP tag () it will do a context switch back to the HTML parser.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:55 pm. Permalink.
