Is there any reason to use PHP when starting a new SaaS project?

Question

I'm a PHP developer, so when I started working on a new SaaS project I naturally planned from day 1 to do it in PHP.

However, I would like to be a bit more pragmatic about this decision since it's one I may have to live with for some time if the project is successful. For that reason, why should I chose PHP as my development language for a new project?

Here are a couple of conditions to help narrow the scope:

• It doesn't make a difference to me that PHP and Linux are free of licensing costs
• My code will only run on my own servers, so compatibility with other web hosts doesn't matter
• I have experience with languages other than PHP, so I'm not starting from square-one on other technologies

Edit:
Is there a compelling technical reason that makes PHP especially suited for SaaS applications that is not available in other languages?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

IMO, there is no reason to go for PHP there (this is coming from someone who codes almost exclusively in PHP, HTML, CSS, JS) - you're probably much better off with C++ or Python - but it depends what you know.

I would code any service in PHP, because I'm quite good at that. However, if you're good at other stuff, by all means use it.

Answer 2

From the sounds of it, the most compelling reason to do it in PHP would be that you are a PHP developer.

SaaS is just a fancy way of saying "website with some shiny bits". It's essentially still a website. Maybe it's got a REST interface or some API methods, or some fancy behind-the-scenes RPC jazz or whatever else you can imagine, but you're still using HTTP and some kind of web client to communicate with it.

In that sense, it's no different than building any other website. And choosing a language to build websites in is an argument that's been done to death.

Answer 3

I understand that you may be working in a start-up, but I believe that you should go with something which has a good availability of tools, libraries and most of all, developers.

By developers, I mean, good developers with many years experience. I am sure you have, but at some point you will need to hire several more.

In my opinion there is no compelling reason to use PHP for SaaS specifically. There are several compelling reasons not to use PHP for anything though, such as poor unicode support and generally weak libraries.

Just because Facebook use it doesn't mean you have to. Facebook don't have a SLA and have lots of smart developers.

Answer 4

You can code a web application with any set of tools you want. Check ahead and see if a good collection of libraries and tools exist to do what you want without having to write every single line of code.

After years of writing PHP I recently switched to a Ruby microframework called Sinatra, because I liked DataMapper and Sinatra's straightforwardness.

Answer 5

In my opinion php is suitable only for free CMS something you create and donate it to sites like sourceforge etc. Due to its nature of viewable source code distributive nature is not there. The SaaS site you are talking about face tough time trying to please all customers with the same core file..but that is not possible. The real gamers are playing with java but the irony is there are no java hosting out there

Abhishek

Answer 6

No, there is no compelling technical reason why PHP is superior for your project. There are other languages with similar strengths and weaknesses, as well as languages with very different ones. A technical reason could therefore only be a reason to disqualify PHP.

But you have enough project reasons to make a qualified decision. When asked to do that, I often use Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats to create a good list of positive and negative issues. You can do that for a whole range of languages/frameworks.