When building web sites, ASP and PHP are very popular languages. Here’s my opinion on whether ASP or PHP is best
ASP v. PHP
Both ASP and PHP are languages used to build Dynamic Web sites
that can interact with Databases and exchange information. ASP (Active
Server Pages) is from Microsoft and is used with IIS (Internet
Information Server) that runs on Microsoft Servers. PHP (Personal Home
Pages) is from Rasmus Lerdorf, who originally designed this parsing
language which was later modified by different people. It runs on Unix
and Linux servers and it also has an NT server version. There are a lot of differences between ASP and PHP.
Cost
To run ASP programs one needs IIS installed on a Windows
platform server, which is not free. PHP programs run on Linux, which is
free. Even the connectivity of the database is expensive in the case of
ASP as MS-SQL is a product of Microsoft that needs to be purchased. PHP
generally uses MySQL, which is freely available. Speed
If we compare the speed of ASP and PHP then PHP has an upper
hand. PHP code runs faster than ASP. ASP is built on COM based
architecture, which is an overhead for the server whereas PHP code runs
in its own memory space. Platform Compatibility
PHP programs can run on various platforms like Linux, Unix,
Windows and Solaris whereas ASP is mainly associated with Windows
platforms. However, ASP can run on a Linux platform with ASP-Apache
installed on the server. Additional Costs
Many of the tools used in PHP are free of cost and since PHP is
open source a lot of code can be found in open source forums. PHP has
inbuilt features like ftp, email from a web page or even encryption
mechanisms but in ASP such features are not built in and some
additional components are required. Therefore an additional cost is
incurred for such components. Base Language
PHP is based on C++ language and the syntax used in PHP is quite
similar to C/C++. C/C++ is still considered the best programming
language by many programmers and people who love this language would
surely feel more comfortable with the syntax of PHP. ASP on the other
hand has a more Visual Basic kind of syntax that again is closely
related to only Microsoft products. So, it depends on a
person-to-person which language he or she is comfortable Database Connectivity
PHP, being extremely flexible, can connect to various databases, the most popular being MySQL. ASP mainly uses MS-SQL.
Conclusion
Both languages have their advantages specific to users. Some
would argue that both the languages have their own importance and
depending on the user's requirements the language and the platform can
be chosen. If we talk about developing a discussion board then ASP is
equally capable but many feel the best discussion boards are developed
in PHP. If a user is looking for some e-commerce application
development then many would call ASP the ideal choice. This does not
mean that PHP cannot provide e-commerce solutions, only that many
people choose ASP.
From my perspective, PHP is an all around better choice than ASP.
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