PHP vs. Node.js: Which is Right for You?

Advantages of PHP

PHP has over 25 years of experience under its belt as a back-end technology that has powered literally hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of websites over its lifecycle.

The programming language is consistently fast, reliable, flexible, and relatively up-to-date with modern programming and development standards. Furthermore, it has strong documentation and community support, with a near-limitless number of tools, libraries, and assets at your disposal to bring your website and application to life.

Other benefits to consider, when weighing up PHP vs. Node.js, include the fact that PHP is:

• Open source and free to use
• Supported by most web hosting services which make it a cost-effective choice
• A server-side scripting language, so you only need to install it on the server – all the client needs is a web browser.
• Ready with built-in support for MySQL
• Compatible with other database management systems such as ODBC, Oracle, Postgres, and MS SQL Server
• Cross-platform, so you can deploy your application across multiple operating systems like Windows, Linux, and macOS

Advantages of Node.js

Despite being around for over a decade, Node.js has proven to be a worthy contender to PHP. The programming language has strong corporate support, used by the likes of Uber, PayPal, Zendesk, and Trello. And the available tools, libraries, and assets have been built in mind to comply with modern programming and development standards.

Perhaps, most importantly, it’s easy to learn, so it’s highly accessible to new and upcoming developers looking to enter the field without being discouraged by a tough learning curve.

Other advantages of Node.js include:

• Non-blocking I/O for asynchronous request handling
• The ability to share and reuse code, thus greatly speeding up the development process
• Based on the V8 engine, which means fast performance and quicker development times
• It is a scalable technology for microservices, allowing developers to break up large, complex applications into their own individual moving parts, making it easy to add new microservices on top of existing ones.

Drawbacks of PHP

Being over 25 years old, PHP has some aspects that are still tied to ‘old school’ programming sensibilities. So, while this makes it ideal for maintaining older legacy systems, it can be hard to recommend for building new websites and applications from scratch.

• Hard to implement Node.js into previous PHP projects, reducing its potential to cooperate with other languages
• A steep learning curve, requiring developers to be familiar with how operators and generators work in Apache HTTP Servers, MySQL, and Linux.
• Slower in terms of speed and performance compared to the more lightweight, efficient Node.js (largely due to it being a blocking I/O model, where each request must be complete before it can start a new one)
• Limited compatibility with non-relational, NoSQL databases
• Resource-intensive on CPU and RAM, limiting its ability to create applications and websites that run well on older machines and devices

Drawbacks of Node.js

While there is a lot going for Node.js, it does have some drawbacks. As a newer programming language, it’s still in a constant state of growth, which can impact its general backward compatibility with certain libraries and modules.

Some users have also reported an inconsistent level of quality in its registries and code, which can stump amateur programmers as to why their website or application is not working properly.

• Less ideal for maintaining older, legacy PHP projects
• Requires longer lines of code than PHP
• Frequent API changes make it prone to instability
• Fewer tools, libraries, and assets to choose from
• Inconsistent quality of libraries
• Not as large of an ecosystem as PHP, which has a much longer history of documentation and community support