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Update: The test below shows interesting results:

http://misfitgeek.com/blog/aspnet/php-versus-asp-net-ndash-windows-versus-linux-ndash-who-rsquo-s-the-fastest/

"Yes, ASP.NET is universally faster than PHP (on Windows and on Linux) with the exceptions of File Copy and Attribute operations."

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Which is better for scalable commercial applications: ASP.NET or PHP?

This question has been raised so many times with my different clients tempting me to know how other fellow programmers feel on this issue. This is what I think:

1. ASP.NET being object oriented is more "organized" and maintainable than scripted PHP. Besides being fully compiled, ASP.NET platform offers loads of pure OO features like inheritance, polymorphism, overloading etc. Newer versions of PHP support OOP but its very limited compared to ASP.NET. My fellow "PHP friend" argued otherwise, and says that PHP has evolved a lot since its inception, but when I showed him what ASP.NET can do with VS (with options like partial classes) he was amazed and agreed that ASP.NET is definitely a step ahead when compared to PHP in terms of being more "flexible".

2. Development in ASP.NET is becoming more and more faster thanks to integrated VS environment, great debugging support and a lot of out-of-the-box controls.

3. Framework Class Library (FCL) is a huge asset compared to PHPs libraries.

4. PHP is more "hackable" than ASP.NET (even though bad programming can lead to hacks in any framework based app)

5. PHP promotes messy code and has poor error handling capabilites.

6. ASP.NET offers more powerful features to control entire HTTP pipeline in its different stages using HttpModules and HttpHandlers.

7. ASP.NET offers different methods to store session data.

8. ASP.NET is more scalable than PHP.

9. ASP.NET is slightly faster than PHP (when we talk of large scale apps)

10. ASP.NET will cost less in terms of hardware to support and scale an application.

11. ASP.NET is "free" just like PHP and there is no considerable difference between hosting costs these days.


I would like to know what others think ! Let me know if you think I am wrong somewhere, I have programmed in PHP years back so I know PHP too. I do agree that the choice of platform is guided by a lot of external factors and with right skill set and tech know-how, developers can create great applications in either platform. But still I feel that the ASP.NET is "more comfortable".