How to choose between ASP.NET and PHP ?

Question

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ASP.NET vs. PHP

Hello!

i want to know what the advantages/drawbacks of each of asp.net and php according to your experience .

thanks

Answer 1

havent done any asp.net development, but imo it is a big cons that one ties oneself to the windows environment.

a possible pro for asp.net might be that you cant throw a stone without hitting a php developer, whereas it doesnt seem to be that many asp.net developers around (not sure how large the demand for them is though; so check the market regarding that one)

Answer 2

ASP.NET is tied to many, many other things. You have to run it under Windows, you generally have to be running Visual Studio, you have to install all sorts of other dependencies and frameworks. Or at least, that's how it looks to me. I was jaded enough with classic ASP and went to PHP after realizing that working with arrays didn't have to be as insane as ASP made it. I'm sure .NET has come a long way since then (all of my co-workers use it) but I won't touch it.

PHP on the other hand can be dirty, ugly and down-right nasty looking IF you don't learn to use it properly. However, it can also be very powerful, concise and forgiving. Plus is has no other dependencies other than a server that can parse it (Apache and IIS both can). Plus there is no compiling like there is with .NET. Plus there are a plethora of libraries, books, tutorials and examples out there to help you do pretty much anything in PHP.

That said - if you have free reign to choose any language, skip both and pick up a Ruby book.

Answer 3

This was a recent post on CodeProject that compared the most recent versions of ASP.NET and PHP.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/applications/php_asp_net.aspx

Keep in mind the article is just one person's opinion and some aspects are up for interpretation. I'm an ASP.NET developer. but I think both ASP.NET and PHP are solid platforms, each having it's own following. You can read debates for as long as you'd like, but I think you can still have a hard time making a decision. One possibility is that you don't have to choose -- learn them both by using them on different small projects and see which one suites you better.