Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Swift VS PHP

Compare Swift VS PHP and see what are their differences

Swift logo Swift

Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple Inc. for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, Linux and z/OS.

PHP logo PHP

A popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development
  • Swift Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-24

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

  • PHP Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-21

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

Swift features and specs

  • Performance
    Swift is designed to be high-performance, often running faster than Objective-C due to its modern language constructs and optimized LLVM compiler.
  • Safety
    Swift includes features like optionals, type inference, and safe memory management to reduce common programming errors and crashes.
  • Readability
    Swift's syntax is clean and less cluttered, making it easier to read and maintain.
  • Interoperability
    Swift is fully interoperable with Objective-C, allowing for easy integration with existing iOS and macOS projects.
  • Modern language features
    Swift includes modern programming concepts such as closures, generics, and tuples which can help developers write expressive and efficient code.
  • Memory management
    Swift uses Automatic Reference Counting (ARC), which helps in efficient memory management without requiring manual intervention from the developer.
  • Active community and support
    Swift has a large, active community and strong support from Apple, ensuring continuous evolution and community-driven improvements.

Possible disadvantages of Swift

  • Newness
    Being relatively new compared to languages like Objective-C, Swift is still evolving, which might lead to occasional stability issues or breaking changes with new updates.
  • Limited legacy support
    Swift does not work with versions of iOS and macOS older than iOS 7 and OS X 10.9, limiting its use in maintaining really old applications.
  • Learning curve
    For developers accustomed to Objective-C or other languages, there is a learning curve associated with familiarizing themselves with Swift’s new syntax and features.
  • Smaller pool of third-party libraries
    Although growing, the ecosystem of third-party libraries for Swift is still smaller compared to more mature languages, potentially limiting immediate availability of tools.
  • Binary compatibility
    Binary compatibility issues can arise, especially when working with a mixed codebase of Swift and Objective-C, requiring extra caution during implementation.
  • Tooling maturity
    Some of the development tools and environments, while robust, can still be less mature compared to the well-established Objective-C tooling.

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.

Swift videos

Honest Review of Swift and First Year Pay

More videos:

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  • Review - 2018 Maruti Swift Review - Still Fun To Drive | Faisal Khan

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

0-100% (relative to Swift and PHP)
Programming Language
42 42%
58% 58
OOP
24 24%
76% 76
Programming
100 100%
0% 0
Generic Programming Language

User comments

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Reviews

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

Swift Reviews

Top 10 Rust Alternatives
Swift also stands to be among the general-purpose computer languages used to generate codes. The basics of this language are based on a safer approach for the users.
The 10 Best Programming Languages to Learn Today
With the growing popularity of Apple operating systems and applications, having Swift programming skills under your belt is a wise investment. Swift shares some similar characteristics with programming languages Ruby and Python.
Source: ict.gov.ge

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

Based on our record, PHP should be more popular than Swift. It has been mentiond 54 times since March 2021. 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.

Swift mentions (30)

  • Migrating Away from Rust
    It surely is, according to Apple's own documentation. > Swift is a successor to the C, C++, and Objective-C languages. It includes low-level primitives such as types, flow control, and operators. It also provides object-oriented features such as classes, protocols, and generics. -- https://developer.apple.com/swift/ If developers have such a big problem glueing C libraries into Java JNI, or Panama, then maybe game... - Source: Hacker News / 18 days ago
  • Apple's Darwin OS and XNU Kernel Deep Dive
    Yes, Apple themselves, apparently folks wanting Apple to use Rust don't read Apple's documentation or watch talks done by Apple compiler developers. > Swift was designed from the outset to be safer than C-based languages, and eliminates entire classes of unsafe code. -- https://www.swift.org/about/ > Swift is a successor to the C, C++, and Objective-C languages. It includes low-level primitives such as types, flow... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • The Top Programming Languages to Learn in 2024
    Swift is Apple's programming language for iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS app development. It's known for its performance and safety, making it a great choice for developing apps in the Apple ecosystem. Explore Swift here. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Swift was always going to be part of the OS
    The raisons d'être between the CLR (and C#) and Swift are entirely different. Apple has explicitly set out to adopt swift as a successor language to C, Objective-C, C++, and Objective-C++[0][1]. This stands in stark contrast to Microsoft's vision for the CLR, which was… to be a better Java, more or less? (Does anyone actually know what the .NET initiative was all about? Microsoft went absolutely ham on it... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Local Dev Meetup
    What part of the coding universe are you interested in? Swift? React? Fission Ecosystem? Source: over 1 year 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: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

Kotlin - Statically typed Programming Language targeting JVM and JavaScript

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

C++ - Has imperative, object-oriented and generic programming features, while also providing the facilities for low level memory manipulation

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

Elixir - Dynamic, functional language designed for building scalable and maintainable applications

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