Difference Between PHP and JavaScript with Comparison Chart

Web backend development is focused on ensuring that everything on the website works well on the server-side. All aspects of a website that users cannot see are part of backend development. No matter what language you choose, PHP or Javascript, for your project, the SCAND software development team is ready to help you with turning your business ideas into reality. To top it all off, Facebook, the social media giant, was first written in PHP. With the evolution of content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, Shopify, and more, PHP has gained its popularity ever since. Therefore, no matter which you choose for your purposes, you can rely on both Node.js and PHP being popular options for developers for a long time in the future.

php vs javascript backend

Still, this technology has been trampled on for several years. This affected the language itself, and many developers began to scold PHP. PHP has a huge code base for all kinds of solutions, from content management systems to powerful frameworks like Laravel and Symfony.

Should I Learn PHP Before JavaScript?

Generally, ease of use is the first quality developers look for when trying a new language or technology. PHP is considered an easy-to-use language by those with a background in C-style languages. It has a simple syntax and an extensive standard library that provides many functions and features. PHP is a server-side (back-end) scripting language, so the code written in the PHP file is executed on the server. We’ll guide you through the feature comparison of these technologies and help you make your own decision on the Node.js vs PHP dilemma.

As was already mentioned, Node.js is very reliant on callbacks due to its asynchronous nature. As a result, the so-called “callback hell” often happens when a queued task has multiple individual callbacks. This results in longer and slower code that is very difficult to work with, especially for less experienced developers.

PHP vs. JavaScript: How Often They Were Used in 2020

PHP integrates particularly well with MySQL or MariaDB, both of which WordPress uses. A number of PHP frameworks also provide easy database integrations. For example, there are over 100 WooCommerce extensions that connect via APIs (application programming interfaces) to different payment providers to process transactions.

php vs javascript backend

He created a shell program that was installed as a module for the Apache. It was originally developed as a preprocessor for hypertext pages so that PHP could be easily integrated into HTML code. This approach is not considered a good practice anymore, https://wizardsdev.com/en/vacancy/php-back-end-engineer/ despite the fact that it used to be simple and understandable to beginners back in the day. When it comes to choosing between JavaScript and PHP for a web development project for small businesses, several factors should be considered.

PHP Cons

Also, PHP peculiarities, such as inconsistent functions or return values, are easier to understand and master than the peculiarities of JavaScript and of certain JS frameworks. Both languages have huge support communities and are favored by large tech giants – both PHP and JavaScript earn a point. JavaScript development is full-stack development, which is the greatest advantage of it. The most  popular front-end JS technologies are Vue, Angular, and React, but here at KeenEthics we also see a bright future for Svelte. PHP is more secure than JavaScript as the code itself is not visible in the browser.

In the battle of PHP vs Node.js, the second technology obviously wins. Instead, you can create a callback function that listens to the process and executes it after the activity is complete. Comparing Node.js and PHP, the first has a non-blocking and asynchronous feature that makes an application fast and allows you to manage many events running at the same time. SPAs and data-driven applications are built by using Node.js as their core technology. Nodejs consists of libraries and frameworks that are quite behind the PHP ecosystem.

PHP vs JavaScript — Integration of the External Code

PHP is a synchronous language, meaning it processes only one request at a time. The server will process a task until it’s completed before moving on to the subsequent request. This can be inefficient if you have a high volume of requests that you must process concurrently. Concurrency is the step-by-step running of a thread in code only when the sub-threads have been completely processed.

  • JavaScript was created in 1995 by Brendan Eich of Netscape to bring interactivity to the Web.
  • Unlike Java or Python and other general-purpose programming languages, PHP was designed specifically for the web.
  • In our opinion, the direct comparison of PHP and JavaScript (JS) is not inappropriate.
  • At first, the flood of projects was received well for adding capabilities and features to PHP, that existed in other technologies.
  • Using an event queue NodeJS enables to development of non-blocking I/O Javascript apps.
  • JavaScript is specialized by an event-driven, single-threaded, non-blocking I/O execution model.

In this post, we’ll explore the differences between the two, and when you should use each language in development projects. Needless to say, there is no comparison when it comes to JavaScript and frontend development, and it indisputably gets the point for this section. JavaScript, on the other hand, continues its high streak coming in second as the most wanted language by developers, and first for most popular. 58% of people who use JavaScript reported they loved it and want to continue working with the language, but only 37% of people who use PHP stated the same. PHP also ranked 6th for the most dreaded language, with 62% of developers using the language expressing they have no interest in continuing to do so. When looking at salary, I also like to examine how the languages are received on a personal level by developers.

This functionality makes Node.js a great choice for real-time applications and those that require a lot of input/output operations. PHP-driven websites greatly outnumber those powered by Node.js, or any other framework for that matter. However, because of great community support, big brands like Netflix, LinkedIn, Instagram, eBay, Trello, Uber, Airbnb, NASA, and Medium all use JavaScript. They chose to hire Indian software developers to create an app. 79% of all websites use PHP as their server-side programming language whereas only 1.2% of websites use JavaScript as their server-side language. This way, 77% of all website in the top 10 lac websites uses PHP.

php vs javascript backend

When you click or tap on a question, JavaScript event handlers toggle the CSS display or visibility properties on or off, showing or hiding the relevant answer. When a method is run on an object, the outcome may be dependent on the object’s properties. Hence a sorcerer’s apprentice object will not be able to cast spells as effectively as a seasoned wizard object.