ASP
vs. PHP
ASP vs. PHP
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.
About the Author Halstatt Pires is with
the Internet marketing firm MarketingTitan.com - a San Diego Internet
marketing and advertising company providing search engine optimization
services and offering automated web site systems through BusinessCreatorPro.com.
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