Thursday 16 November 2017

PHP or Python: Best Language for Web Application Development

Comparing two programming language has always been a tricky task as there are always going to be cases in which one is going to be a better option than the other. In this article, we are going to compare two programming languages i.e Python and PHP and we will try to determine which one is better for programming a web application. 

As per the market report and trend, we can say that PHP developer is far more easy to find than Python developer. This is because PHP is easier to learn, cheap and about 80% of the websites on the internet are powered and developed using PHP. Now first let’s discuss how both of these languages came into the picture and where they are applied.

The Use of PHP and Python

PHP and Python are programming languages and their creators had a totally different goal in mind when they were designing them. PHP was initially made to be a server side, backend developing tool while Python is far more versatile and can be used for building things other than web solutions.

When we talk about syntax, many programmers say that programming in Python is far cleaner than PHP Programming but from the average user’s perspective, one cannot tell the difference, as there are many large and well-known websites powered by both the programming languages.

Both Google and YouTube depend heavily on the powers of the Python programming language and Python is handling huge amounts of traffic daily without any problems. Python also powers one of the world’s leading cloud platforms - Dropbox. This platform allows its users to share, store and sync their files across all devices and friends. Another website, Quora - site to look for an answer to any question, is entirely powered by Python.

Many programmers believe that PHP cannot be compared to other programming languages but there are many websites powered by PHP, and many of these have traffic in hundreds of millions per day. The largest social networking website, Facebook is powered by PHP. Twitter, another popular social network, is also dependent on PHP. Wikipedia is third on the list of most visited website, is also powered by PHP. Hence PHP is very popular and is capable of handling huge traffic without any problems.

Difference between PHP and Python

PHP was developed for web developers and it is a scripting language that operates on the server side. While Python is far more versatile and can be used for many other purposes other than web development.

When we talk about security, the user information and data security are an important topic in any IT related debate. Python is one of the most secure programming languages and it can be used to write the most delicate pieces of software. While PHP has many security issues and those are handled through the use of additional tools. As there is a large PHP community hence those security issues are addressed and resolved quite fast.

When we check the syntax of both the programming languages then you can see that PHP strongly resembles the syntax of the C programming languages while Python is an extremely easy to read language i.e. There are no dollar signs and -> like in the PHP code. This makes the Python code easier to read and debug when programmers have to debug code in big projects

Conclusion

Although Python is more versatile than PHP when it comes to web application development it is quite clear that at this moment PHP is leading as the top language for web development and a number of PHP developers are far more than that of Python in the market. Also, the PHP community offers far more support than the Python community.

Also, PHP is far easier to learn than Python. That’s why the cost of hiring PHP developers is far more affordable than the cost of hiring Python developers. But if you are a company which wants to outsource the PHP coding, it is strongly recommended that you check out and evaluate both the options before you make any final decision. You should not make the decision only on the basis of cost price.

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