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.

Halstatt Pires is with the Internet marketing firm - http://www.marketingtitan.com - a San Diego Internet marketing and advertising company offering automated web site systems through http://www.businesscreatorpro.com