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.NET VS PHP

Compare .NET VS PHP and see what are their differences

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.NET logo .NET

.NET is a free, cross-platform, open source developer platform for building many different types of applications.

PHP logo PHP

A popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development
  • .NET Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-19
  • PHP Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-21

We recommend LibHunt PHP for discovery and comparisons of trending PHP projects.

.NET features and specs

  • Cross-Platform
    The .NET platform supports Windows, macOS, and Linux, which allows for the development and deployment of applications across different operating systems.
  • Performance
    ASP.NET Core, a part of the .NET ecosystem, has high-performance benchmarks and is suitable for developing scalable and high-performance systems.
  • Large Ecosystem
    .NET has a vast library of pre-built components, frameworks, and APIs that speed up development and reduce the need for writing code from scratch.
  • Strong Community Support
    There is a large and active community of developers, providing resources such as forums, documentation, and third-party tools.
  • Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
    Visual Studio, the primary IDE for .NET, offers robust features like IntelliSense, debugging, and testing tools, making development easier and more efficient.
  • Security
    .NET provides a range of security features, including code access security, role-based security, and encryption, making it a reliable choice for secure applications.
  • Compatible with Modern Development
    .NET supports modern development practices like containerization with Docker and cloud-native applications, particularly with Azure.
  • Language Support
    .NET supports multiple programming languages like C#, F#, and VB.NET, allowing developers to choose the right one for their needs.

Possible disadvantages of .NET

  • Learning Curve
    Given its vast ecosystem and feature set, .NET can have a steep learning curve for beginners.
  • Memory Usage
    .NET applications can be more memory-intensive compared to applications built with some other frameworks, which can be a concern for resource-constrained environments.
  • Platform-Specific Issues
    While .NET is cross-platform, certain platform-specific issues can arise, requiring additional work to ensure compatibility.
  • Cost of Microsoft Tools
    Although .NET is open-source, some associated tools like Visual Studio Enterprise come with significant licensing costs.
  • Smaller Talent Pool
    Compared to more universally taught languages like Python or JavaScript, finding highly skilled .NET developers can be more challenging.

PHP features and specs

  • Cost-Effective
    PHP is an open-source language, meaning it is free to use. This helps reduce the overall cost of a project.
  • Large Community
    PHP has a large and active community. This means vast amounts of documentation, tutorials, and third-party resources are available.
  • Cross-Platform
    PHP is platform-independent and can run on various operating systems like Windows, Linux, and macOS.
  • Database Support
    PHP supports a wide range of databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and more.
  • Speed
    PHP is generally fast, especially when used with built-in tools and extensions. It integrates easily with web servers like Apache.
  • Built-in Functions
    PHP comes with a vast range of built-in functions and libraries, which makes developing common functionalities easier and faster.
  • Server-Side Scripting
    PHP is designed specifically for server-side scripting, making it well-suited for web development.

Possible disadvantages of PHP

  • Security
    If not properly managed, PHP applications can be vulnerable to security threats like SQL injection, XSS, and others.
  • Inconsistency
    PHP's function naming and parameter ordering can be inconsistent, which can make the language difficult to learn and use efficiently.
  • Performance
    While fast for many tasks, PHP can struggle with performance for high-resource applications compared to other languages like Node.js or Python.
  • Error Handling
    Error handling in PHP is less efficient and more cumbersome compared to modern languages like Python or JavaScript.
  • Concurrency
    PHP lacks native support for multi-threading, which can be a limitation for applications requiring high concurrency.
  • Old Codebases
    Many older PHP applications use outdated coding practices, making maintaining and updating them more difficult and costly.
  • Type System
    PHP historically had a weak typing system, though recent versions have introduced better type support, it's still a drawback for older codebases.

.NET videos

.NET Design Review: DataFrame

More videos:

  • Review - Truetrader.net | Loophole EXPOSED
  • Review - .NET Design Review: .NET Core 3.1

PHP videos

Is PHP a SCAM? Watch this VIDEO Before You Join!

More videos:

  • Review - For PHP Agents - Advice On Making The Most Of Your Insurance Sales Career

Category Popularity

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Ad Serving
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OOP
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User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare .NET and PHP

.NET Reviews

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PHP Reviews

Top 10 Rust Alternatives
PHP is another general purpose-based computing language. This language is mostly found in HTML. It is usually used for the management of content that is based on dynamic information.
Top 20 Javascript Libraries
As the name suggests, JsPHP is a Javascript library for PHP API to be available in the JS environment. It is open-source and provides a compelling interface for JS developers who work in PHP. JsPHP can work in tandem with other libraries in an application. JsPHP supports PHP functions, including regular expressions, date-time evaluations, JSON, error handling, object...
Source: hackr.io
The 10 Best Programming Languages to Learn Today
What kind of development projects do you want to work on? If career flexibility is a priority, learning Python or C++ will allow you to work across different types of programming. If your passion is web development, learning JavaScript or PHP is a smart choice.
Source: ict.gov.ge

Social recommendations and mentions

PHP might be a bit more popular than .NET. We know about 54 links to it since March 2021 and only 49 links to .NET. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

.NET mentions (49)

  • dotnet cross-platform interop with C via Environment.ProcessId system call
    Dotnet (.NET 9 is used for this article) and C# decompiler. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Why Does Everyone Forget Java and C# for Backend Development? Why Don’t Full-Stack Developers Learn Java and C#?
    C# was developed by Microsoft in the early 2000s as part of its .NET initiative, led by Anders Hejlsberg. Originally designed as an alternative to Java, C# evolved into a powerful language for Windows applications, backend services, game development (via Unity), and cloud computing. The introduction of .NET Core made C# fully cross-platform, allowing it to run on Windows, Linux, and macOS. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Implementing Social Authentication in .NET Web API
    This blog post details how to implement social authentication and provide users with several social login options and how we can handle the users' data obtained as a result of these logins in our application. In this blog post, we’ll look at how we can integrate Google and Facebook login authentications. We will see how this can be implemented from the server side of an application using .NET 6; Microsoft's own... - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Unit (Visual Programming System) [video]
    We never quite lost it, just the startup SV culture lost sight of them, https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/ https://www.outsystems.com/ Or in the game industry, https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/blueprints-visual-scripting-in-unreal-engine/. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • How can I create beautiful graphics easily for my apps and website?
    I want to create graphics easily like found on this website" https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/. Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

PHP mentions (54)

  • The Lost Art of Reading Documentation
    I remember being 15 (18 years ago 🥲) and learning PHP. Stack Overflow wasn’t as big yet, and finding answers often meant digging through forums filled with half-baked solutions, each dependent on specific hosting configurations. There was no universal standard, some hosts supported certain php.ini settings while others didn’t. The only reliable resource? The official PHP documentation: php.net. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Using named arguments in php8 and up
    That's the first I've heard of it, and I like it! I can't tell you the number of trips to php.net to look at argument order for a function. Is it haystack/needle, or needle/haystack? Of course it could turn into the same thing w/ argument names (is it whole_name or full_name?), but I'm going to use it. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • How to display results from multiple SQL queries in the same table cell?
    Prepare to spend a fair bit of time reading and going back to phptherightway.com and php.net. I've also found this Tutorial from Envato Tuts+ to be quite good. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Beginner searching for set up resources
    All I want to do with php is to have a recurring navbar on a website. I don't know what to do next. So far I've tried php.net's manual, w3scchool's tutorial and the set up part of first five recommended php tutorials on youtube. I have also spent hours on stackoverflow, which got me even more confused. The more I read, the less nothing makes sense to me and I don't know where the problem is. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • date_format crashing on NULL values after upgrade to PHP 8.x
    I tried looking at the upgrade from 7.4 to 8.0 docs on php.net but I don't see anything regarding any changes to this function. Any ideas? Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing .NET and PHP, you can also consider the following products

WPMU DEV - WPMU offers WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, WordPress Multisite and BuddyPress Plugins and Themes.

Python - Python is a clear and powerful object-oriented programming language, comparable to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, or Java.

MAMP - MAMP is the abbreviation for Macintosh, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. It is a reliable application with its four components that allows you to access the local PHP server as well as the database server (SQL).

JavaScript - Lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with first-class functions

Firefox Developer Edition - Built for those who build the Web. The only browser made for developers.

Java - A concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, language specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible