How does PHP compare with .net? pros and cons...?

Answer 1

First of al, allow me to correct the previous poster. PHP is a general-purpose language that can be used for Web page generation (including Web services), command-line scripting, and writing standalone applications (the latter could be done with GTK, or with a PHP compiler, such as Roadsend PHP Compiler, or with a deployment platform, such as NuSphere phpDock). .Net is not a language, but rather, a development platform that supports multiple languages (by the way, it is possible to integrate PHP into .Net).

PHP can run on almost any operating system, including Linux and FreeBSD, the workhorses of affordable Web hosting. .Net requires Windows Server (there are products that allow to deploy .Net on Unix, but I don't know how they affect performance and stability).

PHP can work with almost any HTTP server (Apache, IIS, Stronghold, Zeus, and many others). .Net requires IIS.

PHP natively integrates with a variety of database engines, both open-source (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite) and commercial (MS SQL Server, Oracle) and supports ODBC. There is also a version of PHP (Zend Core for Oracle) that is optimized for working with Oracle in mission-critical Web applications. .Net is somewhat more limited in its native intergation options, preferring to rely on ODBC instead.

Performance-wise, a lot depends on specifics. Generally speaking, either could be used to write a high-performance scalable application, provided that you have adequate support from a network engineer and a DBA.

Answer 2

PHP is a scripting language used only to create dynamic webpages. .NET on the other hand is a framework which you can benefit from to create not only webpages but also windows applications, windows services, web services etc...So .NET web applications are compiled into .NET DLL's

For small projects PHP can be great. It is fast, updating your code can be done fast (you simply upload the modified PHP file). With .NET changing your code -behind files might require you to compile your application and upload DLL's

For Larger projects, .NET allows you to create libraries in an Object Oriented fashion. You can use these libraries for both windows and web applications, hence benefit from code reuse.

Also with .NET you can choose from the plethora of .NET languages available to develop your application. You can benefit from Object Oriented languages like C# to structure your application.