PHP

PHP is an incredibly popular programming language used on a plethora of websites. If you decide to use PHP for your next web you’re in good company among websites such as Facebook, WordPress and Wikipedia.

Unlike Microsoft ASP.Net, PHP is not a framework and so a number of third party frameworks exist which are designed to take the effort out of the more mundane aspects of programming with PHP. These include CodeIgniter and Zend.

PHP is somewhat more lightweight than Microsoft .Net and therefore very useful if you only need a small website with some very basic functionality. We also recommend PHP for any content managed, e-commerce and blogging websites as there are literally thousands of PHP platforms to choose from. This is compared to maybe only 100 or so platforms available for Microsoft .Net. For examples see WordPress.com and Joomla.com.

What it's good for

Open Source

Free and therefore ideal for small projects on a budget.

Simple

Easy to understand and learn.

Lean

PHP doesn't consume a lot of server resources, making it ideal for basic hosting packages.