What would be better to use in this case? c# or php?

Question

I am making a website where users can upload pictures and draw on them, add text etc. My team knows some php, but we know nothing about c#. Time is not too much of an issue. We all know java, what would the perks of each be? I have been hearing that c# will be much better for handling the canvas because there is a lot more libraries for it? Will it really matter c# of php? for both you have to use javascript and possibly jquery anyway? Keep in mind we are all more than willing to learn c# and we have a windows server also. Let me know your guys thoughts! Thanks!

Answer 1

If your team knows something about PHP, then PHP is probably your best bet hands down.

Personally, I don't know of anything in C# (since it's a web based client, rather than desktop) that would give you an advantage over PHP.

Answer 2

If your team already knows PHP, and can already do the work in PHP, I'd stick with what they know. I don't know enough about the differences between the two to give you hard performance numbers, but I would expect that a team already fluent in PHP would do better work with the tool they know rather than learning a new one just because it meets some arbitrary definition of "better."

Answer 3

One of the first questions you have to ask when building an application is: how and where will be application be used?

If you're building an intranet application for deployment in a Windows environment, particularly if you want to tie into Active Directory for user authentication, then you should be looking at IIS, and after that ASP.NET, which would lead you in the direction of C# (though PHP can be used as well). If you're looking at deploying your application in a heterogeneous environment, then PHP is a much more portable choice.

Answer 4

If you know java, moving into C# shouldn't be that hard. They are similar and the set of classes that come with Java and .NET Framework are similar, but layed out differently.

I use C# and ASP.NET (usually ASP.NET MVC) for ALL of my new web application development, partly because its what I know, but also I just really don't like php (and I'm not alone).

Thats said, if you're going to be using HTML5/Javascript (you mention canvas) then your backend code will matter less since it will mostly be persisting your data to disk on the server; however, I think that something like Flash or Sliverlight would provide a better end user experience for an on-line image minipulation tool. Either of these can be hosted from a C# web app or a php one.