PHP Vs Python: Which Is Best For Web Application In 2022?

Almost every new business or startup requires an interactive website and a mobile application. For any development project, choosing the right programming language is very crucial. So, the question arises: How does one actually decide which framework to choose, as there are many programming languages, each with its features, libraries and pros and cons.

 

The domain targeted by the startup/business also helps in narrowing down the choice of platform as some languages are better suited for specific purposes. Currently, PYTHON and PHP are two most popular and influential programming languages that many developers like using for web development projects.

 

PYTHON is primarily good Data Science, Image Processing and AI applications whereas, PHP is good for basing a CMS (Content Management System) on or for integrating with SQL/NoSQL databases.

 

In this blog, we will try to unveil various aspects and see which of them wins the battle!

Developed by the Danish-Canadian Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994, PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page and is now more commonly known by the recursive name PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is a server-side scripting language, widely used for web development. By scripting language, we mean a program that is script-based (lines of code) written for the automation of tasks. PHP is used for creating dynamic content websites or interactive web applications, e-commerce applications and integrated database applications.

 

It can be embedded into HTML, making it easier to add functionality to web pages eliminating the need to call external files for data. Having the data embedded in HTML makes the web app faster and more robust but at the same time has the drawback of needing a deployment for any data change.

- PHP is open-source hence, can be downloaded and used for free, without the need to purchase a license.

- Faster and easy to use than other scripting languages like ASP, PERL and JSP as it is an interpreted language and there is no need for compilation

- PHP being a portable language runs on different platforms like Windows, Linux, Unix, MAC OS and supports most web browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Edge, Firefox etc.

- PHP is database friendly and can be integrated with a number of popular databases including MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server etc.

- PHP also supports NoSQL databases, a feature which has been built in from later versions to offer support for big datasets and data lakes.

- It offers compatibility with almost all the servers used today such as APACHE, IIS etc. making it easy to deploy on different systems and platforms.

- For generating errors/warnings, PHP provides some pre-defined Error Handling features.

- A key feature of PHP is its ability to be executed from command line interface making it ideal for use in cron jobs (LINUX) or task scheduler (WINDOWS).

- PHP can be used to create dynamic websites which will display information based on what the user should be shown for each access.

- PHP can be used for command line scripting making it a powerful tool to run systems and perform jobs at specific intervals

- PHP can be used to create scripts for your web apps which do a predefined job on first page load/access.

- PHP can perform functions like create, open, read, write and close files on a system. It can make changes to the database by adding, modifying or deleting database elements.

- Data can be encrypted using PHP using OpenSSL which is the most widely adopted library for secure communications including HTTPS websites.

- Access cookies variables and set cookies to handle user interaction and serve content based on those cookies.

- It can be used to control user-access, that is restricting users to access specific web pages based on user privilege levels and server-side information.

- It is widely used for generating XML documents, Flash animation, graphics, PDF Files and much more.

- It is used for sending and receiving emails using built-in features such as localhost or Xampp.

Python has become one of the most popular programming languages in the world in recent years. First Created by Guido van Rossum and released in 1991, Python is an interpreted high-level and object-oriented programming language. It is often used for the back-end development of a website, software application development, automation of tasks and conducting data analysis and visualization. It can be used by programmers for developing web applications and non-developers for a variety of day-to-day tasks.

- PYTHON is also open-source, which means its free to use and distribute.

- It is relatively easy to learn. The syntax is similar to the English language making it more readable compared to other programming languages.

- PYTHON comes with numerous pre-built libraries for the development of all types of applications and modules making development an easy task. The standard library of PYTHON being huge, consists of functions for almost every common task.

- It supports cross-platform compatibility with UNIX, Windows and Macintosh.

- Like other High-level languages, it has an automatic garbage collection process to delete unused resources or manage memory.

- It supports GUI Applications that can be created and ported to many other systems.

- PYTHON is widely used to generate Flash animation, XML documents, PDF Files and graphics.

- It aids data analysts to perform complex statistical calculations, data visualizations, build machine-learning algorithms, manipulate and analyze data.

- It provides a wide range of data visualizations such as line graphs, bar graphs, pie charts, 3D plots etc.

- Its role is to send and receive data from the servers, data processing, communicating with the database, ensuring security and URL routing.

- In software testing, it is aided to build control, bug tracking and supports an interactive mode of testing and debugging.

- It can help you to organize or automate your daily life tasks such as keeping a track of stock market or crypto prices, converting text files to spreadsheets, updating your shopping grocery lists, randomly assigning chores to family members, etc.

PYTHON is a general-purpose programming language while PHP is more of a web development programming language.

PYTHON has a very clear, easy to remember and concise syntax of codes. PHP has a rigid and complicated syntax with a wide range of naming conventions. PYTHON is easier to read, which makes debugging code simpler while PHP has to check thoroughly for any syntactical mistakes.

PYTHON has a relatively high learning curve. Compared to PHP, coding is easier to grasp with PYTHON but gives a better outlook for long term projects. PHP has a considerably lower learning curve and it is straightforward to get started with resulting in the large number of developers worldwide.

PYTHON has many diverse uses. It is suitable for AI, Data Science and widely used by the scientific community. PHP is not an ordinary programming language as it’s used mainly for designing dynamic website pages with HTML. It makes PHP less productive than PYTHON. So, in terms of learning and usage, PYTHON leaves PHP behind.

For any web development project, writing and deploying a secure code is one of the key requirements. Having said that, PYTHON is more secure than PHP.  It has many security features that you can use to build complex applications with high-end functionality. Therefore, many government organizations and banking institutions prefer PYTHON.

PYTHON has a lower number of frameworks. Django and Flask are some of the popular frameworks of PYTHON. These are highly scalable, fast and easy to use.

 

On the other hand, PHP users have access to mature frameworks. Symfony and Laravel are some of the popular frameworks of PHP, supported by a large community.

PYTHON is also database-integrable with multiple top databases. But in comparison, PHP is more accessible for database manipulations.

 

Due to the nature of PYTHON, it is often not required to integrate with databases to a large extent. On the other hand, PHP supports over 20 database integrations ranging from SQL Server, MySQL to NoSQL databases e.g., MongoDB.

After 2016, Python’s popularity has increased rapidly while PHP is losing its popularity on stack overflow. This is due to the increasingly diverse nature of usages and penetration of computing applications in our day-to-day lives.

PHP and PYTHON both are very popular programming languages but PHP is losing popularity in today’s world.  According to a survey, PYTHON was one of the most used programming languages of 2020-2021. It is also observed that PHP is used by 25.8% of the developers while PYTHON is used by 73.1%.

 

Thus, in this PHP Vs PYTHON cold war, PYTHON is the more popular programming language in 2022 that encompasses a simple yet vast range of commands and library for the users to play with.

 

But this does not mean you have to choose PYTHON and abandon PHP. It primarily depends on your project requirements along with your knowledge and expertise in either or both of them.