Tim's Weblog
Tim Strehle’s links and thoughts on Web apps, software development and Digital Asset Management, since 2002.
2004-03-29

PHP vs. ASP.NET

Sean Hull compares PHP and ASP.NET on the Oracle Technology Network:

"In this article I'll focus on PHP, the technology Oracle has chosen to incorporate into its products, and ASP.NET. [...] In conclusion you'll find a point-by-point comparison in terms of price, speed and efficiency, security, cross-platform support, and the advantages of an open source solution."

"You might ask [...], "Why are database-dependent libraries being touted as features of PHP?" Database abstraction, or independence, is a feature if you seek to build an application that works with multiple databases in one application or that can easily be ported to another database—when moving from development to production, for instance. And these are indeed valid concerns and considerations. But, as Tom Kyte points out in his latest book, Effective Oracle by Design (Oracle Press), database dependence should be your real goal because you maximize your investment in that technology. If you make generic access to Oracle, whether through ODBC or Perl's DBI library, you'll miss out on features other databases don't have. What's more, optimizing queries is different in each database."

Here's their comparison table:

PHP 4PHP 5ASP.NET
**Software price**freezend-490free
**Platform price**freefree$$
**Speed**strongstrongweak
**Efficiency**strongstrongweak
**Security**strongstrongstrong
**Platform \[=platform security?\]**strongstrongweak (IIS only)
**Platform**anyanywin32 (IIS only)
**Source available**yesyesno
**Exceptions**noyesyes
**OOP**weakstrongstrong