ASP (Active-server-pages) and PHP (Hyper-text-pre-processor) are the 2 standard programming languages that are used for website application development. Other than these, the programming languages are also used for producing dynamic database oriented websites.
ASP is usually from Microsoft and can only be used with Internet Information Server. But PHP is an independent programming language and is able to connect with different types of databases. However, there are several differences between PHP and ASP website programming.
- Codes are Simple– PHP codes are of less weight and they can be easily understood. However, ASP codes are not that easy to understand.
- General Run Time– It is also observed that the running speed of PHP is greater than ASP. There is no doubt in the fact that PHP code runs faster than ASP code. PHP code normally runs on its own inbuilt memory space, whereas, due to COM based architecture, ASP uses server space in order to run its code.
- Compatibility of Database– PHP is extremely flexible and uses MySQL for the purpose of database connectivity, whereas, Database compatibility for ASP is costly.
- Background Language Support– ASP has a Visual Basic type of syntax, which is linked to Microsoft products. On the other hand PHP codes are based on the syntax and the C++ language. Still now C/C++ is considered to be the finest programming language by most of the software programmer.
- Platform Connectivity– ASP codes are most of the time linked with Windows platforms whereas PHP codes can run on a number of platforms, such as, Solaris, Windows, Linux and UNIX.
- Tools Cost– Most of the tools used in PHP are free of cost and the codes of PHP can be available in blogs and open source forums. PHP has a number of inbuilt attributes, such as, encryption methods, ftp whereas, in ASP such types of attributes are not obtainable.
- Applications Support– from the perspective of coding level ASP is just as protected as PHP. The main difference only lies in private data, such as, “PIN numbers”, “social security numbers” etc.
Though there are several advantages and disadvantages of both the programming languages, they also have their own significance on the basis of budgets and requirements of the users. Since the budgets of the small business owners are fixed, PHP programming is considered to be most suitable for them. However, it should be kept in mind that PHP couldn’t be used for e-commerce application development, so people associated with e-commerce business should take the help of ASP.net.