Why You Should Choose PHP For Your Next Project

Why PHP?

Are you considering to develop a web project? Which platforms do you have on mind?

There are plenty of articles devoted to PHP language both positive and negative, from both experienced developers and less proficient, but the fact that it remains among the 10 most popular programming languages proves it worth consideration.

Being competitive to .NET and Java, PHP has its benefits that development teams appreciate it for. Just the fact that 84,1% of websites are developed using PHP suggests these guys have done something worthwhile.

Well, do you like reading blogs? How many do you have in your bookmarks? Now we can claim that at least half of them are based on wordpress. Official stats reveal that 70% of blogs are ran by WordPress or just … 74,6 million websites (!!!) (that is more than 1 website per person in the UK!)

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But the question remains: what PHP is so much appreciated for?

The first and foremost reason is that it’s acknowledged to be the easiest web programming language. Even people with low or no technical background can quickly become familiar with it. Just after a 3-months educational course on PHP, you’ll be able to develop a code that will run literally everywhere on any device without any troubles. But first things first.

PHP and its frameworks are great tools to build dynamic websites, run blogs and in addition it has the most welcoming hosting conditions (so you can host your website at a very low price). Do you know what unites Facebook, Yahoo!, Flickr and Tumblr? They’re all PHP-based. So PHP definitely …

Gets things done

We hope that those who claim PHP to be a great headache are not here with us now. But for them we can assume that it has some drawbacks. For example PHP has not the best design ever and there are tons of things that a developer (a good developer) should remember: code exceptions, strange behaviours etc. Yes, there’s no ideal language and our computers are machines that perform bugs from time to time. There’s no proof against such “surprises” but again, a good developer can write good code using any language. And stats above reveal that PHP is still (it first appeared 1995) among the top web languages for various purposes:

e-commerce projects

That’s one of the major purposes PHP is used for. You can build your own online store from scratch or try a ready-to-use framework like CakePHP, Magento, Joomla, Shopify etc.

project-management tools

An undisputed advantage is that PHP allows to build apps with all necessary aspects as for PM tool: time-tracking, boards, assignment ability, to-do lists, security, file-sharing and a lot more.

content management projects

As we’ve argued before, 70% of blogs today are ran by WordPress. And we feel confident that another 10% are for Joomla or Drupal. These HTML CMS – based websites would be equally convenient for your clients to update content (text/photo) or change topic of the website. Content projects demand a lot of attention and are updating regularly. So your choice of a good and reliable CMS will save you much time in the future.

flash design

Do you feel your website looks a bit boring? Do you wish to bring some fresh engaging elements? PHP is here for you. With that you are welcome to create animated background for your website, insert movies or text, anything to deliver great UX!

develop plugins

Perhaps you have been using your own PHP-based website and you feel that there’s a lack of functionality. Or some feature works wrong. Then you have a chance to contribute. The only requirement is that you need basic PHP knowledge and an idea of how the WordPress Codex looks like. You can create plugin to improve your own user experience of your blog (organise content wisely, add engaging features for visitors etc.) or help others. There’s even a special community where users share their ideas on plugins they wish to develop.

PHP Goodies

With the variety of options to choose for creating outstanding dynamic websites PHP remains the leading platform our customers opt for. Here’s why:

Easy to learn

As we’ve already noted, even non-technical people can develop PHP projects. No, we don’t suggest you start learning it. This fact reveals that the competition among such specialists is high, so … you can get better value-for-money than for other .NET or Java EE project. For sure.

It’s free

You can download the source just for free here and there won’t be any licence agreements or additional fees.

No setup difficulties

You can run PHP on any platform including Linux, WIndows, Mac OS or even IBM’s System.

PHP supports a 3rd party code

PHP is friendly. It easily integrates with other programming languages (once there’s lack of functionality within the platform). So you can feel safe to reuse some components without fear to rebuild the system. Many customers appreciate it for that particular feature.

You can also use the code of those who have had the same problem and paste their solution to your project. There are special official communities like PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) & PECL(PHP Extensions repository) where you can find functionality to extend your project’s features.

Code is portable

Once your team has generated a smart code on PHP it can easily moved to the other OS without any losses of functions. Sometimes it’s a good plan for those entrepreneurs who have several alike projects and wish to save time.

Community

Some people claim that this criteria can be even omitted when you choose the platform. But sometimes it plays major role when your team tries to solve some issue. One click in google search and your team is on their way! There is a countless number of groups and communities where developers share their experience of solving alike problems. More often than not such advice is of a great assistance. So no wasted time on project for debugging or looking for solution since your problems have been already solved.

It’s fast

Since PHP doesn’t demand much system resources it performs faster than other script-based websites. Even when there’s some other software integrated the speed is high.

Favourable hosting conditions

Another benefit is hosting for PHP-based projects. There are a lot of providers ready to offer not only hosting but also support service for your website.

Fast time to market

For you as an entrepreneur it’s vital that your idea is implemented asap. PHP demands less time to release than the same .NET project. So the faster users get your app the higher your cost-efficiency is.

Just let us say it one more time: PHP is definitely not the best language, BUT it’s definitely the best web platform. It’s your choice to consider any other option to build you web project, but there are reasons to trust the experience of millions of successful PHP-based projects.

In order to back our arguments with proof here are some samples of customers’ web projects just for every category we mentioned above:

Gambling Website – a good example of complex social gambling platform for game reviews and competition based on PHP with variety of JavaScript elements on front-end.

E-commerce System – not just a simple online store. It has a feature where users can search for the best price offer and purchase online. In addition the website allows ads display and works as an ad platform as well.

Content project – website for Kids Theatre where the content needs to updated on a regular basis.

Got inspired? We can’t help waiting to hear your idea!