ASP.NET and PHP are the two leading technologies that are nowadays extensively used for developing web applications. Business owners with less technical knowledge may face difficulty in choosing either of these two technologies for their web application development project.

Similarly, newbie developers may face the dilemma of opting either for ASP.NET or PHP to learn further for tapping the rewarding career opportunities in the web development sector.

We are hereby doing a fair comparison of these two popular web building technologies. This will help entrepreneurs and developers to grasp a better understanding of the technologies and make it easy for them to take the right decision.

Let’s begin by sharing some words about PHP and ASP.NET:-

PHP

PHP is a scripting language that is used for web development. It is a mix between a programming language and a web framework. PHP can be embedded into HTML code, executed with a command line interface or used in different combination of web content management systems, web template systems and web frameworks. Equipped with advanced and sophisticated features, PHP can be used for a number of programming tasks that lie outside the web context, including drone control and graphical applications.

PHP was created by Rasmus Lerdorf, a Danish Canadian programmer in 1994. He originally used PHP tools for tracking visits to his online resume. He later released the PHP tools’ source code to the public. According to Lerdorf, PHP always tries to find the shortest path for solving the web problem.

PHP is a general-purpose programming language that was known as Personal Home Page since its inception. But it is now called Hypertext Preprocessor.

ASP.NET

ASP.NET is an open-source server-side web application framework developed by Microsoft. Released in January 2002, ASP.NET provides high-performance web development tools that enable programmers to build dynamic web pages and websites, web applications and web solutions.

ASP.NET frameworks are written in the .NET language. They support Visual Basic.NET, JavaScript.NET as well as languages like Perl and Python. ASP.NET framework is also compatible with the previous version, ASP.NET MVC.

1. Popularity

PHP is more popular than ASP.NET. As per the statistics published on the website of W3Techs on 24th January 2020, PHP is used in 79.0% and ASP.NET is used in 10.6% of all the websites that use various server-side programming languages.

W3Techs collects information about the usage of various kinds of technologies used for developing and running websites and produces and publishes related surveys.

2. Speed and Performance

The method adopted for coding has a role to play in the performance of a framework. ASP.NET and PHP are quite close in terms of performance.

Both PHP and ASP.NET are equipped for running the routine processes and producing the desired results like accessing file systems, finding images and displaying the pages on a web server. The speed of these performances depends on various factors like database server, end user’s bandwidth and computer, etc.

3. Scalability

Both ASP.NET and PHP web applications are highly scalable. For choosing one of them, business owners should consider the state of their business. For DIY entrepreneurs who want to build their website with Drupal, PHP is the preferred option as it is easy to learn. ASP.NET is more demanding than PHP.

Established businesses should hire the best available developers who are well versed in either PHP or ASP.NET, depending on the language they already use for web development.

4. Cost

Being open-source, PHP is completely free. Development in ASP.NET is also free, but the tools used for developing an ASP.NET application are not always free.

There are two options for free ASP.NET development. The first one involves using the Mono Project’s ASP.NET implementation for running your site. This is entirely free and handles ASP.NET websites.

The second option involves hosting your website on IIS for which you have to pay a licensing fee. Due to this reason, hosting ASP.NET is much more expensive than PHP.

5. Support

PHP is open source and is a widely used language. It has a large community of friendly developers. Compared to this, ASP.NET has a smaller community of dedicated developers. Both of these communities are constantly working to improve the frameworks and they keep posting regularly to online forums to help and support other developers looking for solutions to their problems.

Developers will find both of these communities useful for getting solutions to their problems, but in the case of PHP, they are going to get them quickly due to the sheer number of developers associated with its community.

6. Use on Various Operating Systems

While PHP can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux machines, ASP.NET can run only on Windows machines. In order to use ASP.NET on Mac or Linux machine, you need to use the Mono Project.

Mono Project is an open-source development platform that is based on the .NET framework. It enables developers to build cross-platform applications with increased productivity.

7. Learning Curve

Learning PHP is easier than C# powered ASP.NET which involves a bit of a learning curve.

8. Security

Both ASP.NET and PHP provide developers strong security features. While ASP.NET has got inbuilt security features, PHP only provides the tools. In case, a developer does not structure the app in a secure manner, it could lead to the building of web apps that are vulnerable to security threats.

9. Desktop Application

ASP.NET is fast enough for desktop applications. But PHP is slower and usually is not suitable for desktop applications.

10. Customization

ASP.NET is less likely to be customized. But PHP allows customization which can cause bugs and consequently lead to poor coding than ASP.NET.

11. Error Handling

PHP has poor error handling, so it can take more time to find why a specific piece of code is not working as expected. Compared to this, ASP.NET supports coding and helps developers in finding out mistakes.

12. Focus of Solutions

While solutions built in ASP.NET are more focused on security and functionalities, solutions built in PHP are more focused on client-facing user interfaces.

13. Type of Applications

While PHP programming is fit for building small business websites, ASP.NET programming is suitable for building enterprise-level websites.

PHP programming is suitable for startups, but ASP.NET programming is fit for ERP apps.

While PHP programming is apt for independent software vendors, ASP.NET programming is fit for the intranet.

PHP programming is suitable for billing/invoicing websites and CRMs, but ASP.NET programming is fit for enterprise-level CRMs.

It is now time to share with you some other noteworthy advantages and disadvantages of PHP and ASP.NET.

Advantages of PHP

• PHP is simple and easy to maintain.
• This open-source software is available free of cost for modifications and redistribution.
• PHP is extremely effective to access and communicate with various types of databases. So it is apt for web-based scripts like website content management systems.
• It works great for large projects like Facebook and Wikipedia.
• PHP has a low development cost.

Disadvantages of PHP

• It has a slower execution.
• PHP is unable to solve specific problems.

Advantages of ASP.NET

• ASP.NET provides flexibility to add and remove features.
• It allows setting up a cross-platform and open-source framework in a simple manner.
• ASP.NET is seamlessly compatible with other .NET frameworks.
• It informs developers of any mistake they make in coding before compilation.
• ASP.NET supports all programming languages. Also, it works well with either app or C#.
• It is a great platform for building enterprise applications.
• ASP.NET provides a lot of pre-coded options that facilitate fast development.
• It provides a remarkable user interface for developers.

Disadvantages of ASP.NET

• Developers using ASP.NET face problems like difficulty in making changes and documentation gaps.
• The framework is not simple and easy to understand.
• ASP.NET is more expensive than PHP.
• It offers less community support than PHP due to less number of developers associated with its community.
• ASP.NET runs only on a Microsoft server.

Here are some examples of websites built using PHP and ASP.NET:-

Wikipedia, Facebook, WordPress.com, Flickr, Yahoo!, iStockPhoto, Tumblr and Mailchimp are some popular sites built using PHP.

TacoBell.com, Diply.com, Wild Tangent, Dell, GoDaddy, Microsoft and Visual Studio are some prominent websites built using ASP.NET.

We hope the above-done comparison encompassing various aspects of PHP and ASP.NET, helps you easily decide whether to Hire ASP.NET Developers or PHP developers for your web development project.

In case, you feel you require expert assistance for making this decision correctly, you can contact the specialists at Matrid Technologies, an experienced ASP.Net and PHP Web Development Company in India for the same.