“The most popular programming language software worldwide in 2021 was PHP, with a market share of 45.43 percent.”- these are not our words but facts covered by Statista.
Web development and PHP go together like cake and frosting. Over the past few decades, PHP has emerged as the topmost technology for developing robust websites and web apps. Although there’s a myriad of programming languages available, PHP has caught the attention of some of the big brands out there. Now you might want to know the secret behind PHP’s charm. We will tell you about it.
So, among the many programming languages, PHP outshines and rules the web development world with a stunning 79% share in web development. Moreover, PHP is a prime technology that the majority of content management systems use today.
With the increasing competition and admiration for digital web solutions, many businesses trust and rely on PHP to step up their digital game and lead the industry efficiently. Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of this scripting language, don’t you think we should cover the basics first? So, let us know PHP a little better together.
What is PHP? What makes it so popular?
PHP is an open-source programming or scripting language known in the tech world as the best for developing high-quality web apps. PHP is backed up by a huge community that makes sure it works smoothly under all circumstances and remains updated with the recent trends.
Furthermore, handling the back-end and server-side of the businesses is done by PHP with utmost precision. Consequently, PHP code runs on the server, leaving only plain HTML code on the client-side to be shown to users by a web browser. PHP also contains numerous extensions that make it easy for software engineers to interact with databases.
There are unlimited things that PHP is capable of apart from creating compelling web applications. All these things together consolidate the popularity of this server-side scripting language.
So here is the list of things that one achieves with PHP-
- Modify content creation
- Create dynamic content
- Send or receive content
- Collect data from forms
- Perform data encryption
- Create, write, open, delete, and close file
- Work on different databases
From the points mentioned above, we get a clear idea of how PHP can be trusted for web development for big and small businesses alike. PHP’s ability to create unrivaled websites and powerful functionality influences modern businesses and transform them from head to toe.
Why use PHP for web development? Let’s look at the reasons.
After throwing some light on the popularity of PHP, let’s analyze the logical reasons behind businesses’ increasing trust in this programming language. So, let’s jump straight into it.
It is free and open-source
Being a free server-side language, PHP gets an edge over other languages because of its open-source nature. On top of that, it is the most budget-friendly option for creating any type of web solution. Be it a website, eCommerce store, or web application, PHP is the relevant scripting language for one and all.
It is cost-efficient
Another reason that gives PHP prominence among web developers is that it is available for free. Moreover, there are no licensing fees involved for reaping the benefits of this programming language. Additionally, the original source code of the PHP programming language is available for free under the General Public License.
Plenty of resources
Another advantage of choosing PHP for web development is that it offers plenty of resources and tools to develop high-quality web applications. Whatever the developers require, be it editors, dependency managers, documentation tools, or frameworks, PHP offers high-quality, ready-to-use tools.
PHP frameworks offer robust solutions
There are many frameworks created on PHP that allow developers to create dynamic web apps quickly and easily. Businesses can choose a PHP framework among CakePHP, Laravel, Symfony, Zend Framework, CodeIgniter, Yii, and others.
What’s more interesting is that most of these frameworks use MVC architecture that expedites coding and enables the developers to create efficient solutions.
PHP helps in web hosting
PHP’s flexibility makes it a sought-after programming language in the web development world. Almost all the web hosting service providers are highly compatible with the PHP programming language. Mostly all the hosting packages include excellent PHP language support and involve free web host plans or affordable plans.
Time-saving and cost-efficient
As compared to other programming languages, PHP takes less time to develop websites and web apps. With PHP, even the most complex software can be executed effortlessly in the blink of an eye. Eventually, the lesser development time results in huge savings too. So, along with lesser web development time, PHP development costs also decrease simultaneously.
It is versatile
This is another benefit of PHP that grabs the limelight often. Since it’s an independent scripting language, it can be used on MacOS, Linux, and supports most of the web browsers. On top of that, it supports all the web servers and makes it easy to deploy on different systems and platforms.
It is tested in real environments
Here comes another benefit of PHP that wins businesses’ trust. PHP code has been put to the test in all kinds of real-life environments. This enables them to find the main bugs and make the language more stable and trusted by the developers. Moreover, over time many PHP tools have helped to make PHP more secure, and effective.
Which big brands are currently using PHP in full swing?
As PHP offers unparalleled development opportunities, it has gained the trust of some of the biggest brands today. These brands are not just successful but many small businesses look up to them as well. So, let’s have a look at these brands and learn from their success.
Who doesn’t know Facebook? Facebook has its own version of PHP called HipHop virtual machine, which tickles down the updates into PHP itself. With PHP’s support, Facebook has millions of active users today.
Wikipedia
Nothing is more active than Wikipedia when it comes to updates. It is developed at a rate of 1.9 edits per second and 594 new articles every day. Thus, PHP’s scalability and stability turned out to be quite fruitful for PHP.
Mailchimp
MailChimp has a solid position in email marketing and supports over 12 million customers today. That’s the magic of PHP for MailChimp. Moreover, MailChimp owns 72.68% of the email market share. Now isn’t that huge!
Yahoo
Yahoo continues to serve over 700 million users per month. This search engine switched to PHP in 2002, and that resulted in reduced PHP costs and improved support scaling. Thus, switching to PHP from a C++ system did its job well for Yahoo.
Tumblr
Tumblr started using PHP7 in 2017 and it didn’t look back ever since. The dramatic performance improvement and language features contributed to making Tumblr one of the best platforms for creative content, memes and blogs on a variety of topics.
What do you think about the potential of PHP in the future?
When giants like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Yahoo are using PHP in action, its future seems promising from here. Moreover, when it comes to security, no programming language can match PHP’s proficiency. Being a cost-friendly and easy-to-use language, PHP facilitates perfect coding for creating web solutions that are par excellence.
Many businesses choose PHP for their precious projects. Here are a few more reasons that stimulate the business to go for PHP web development.
- PHP is a server-side scripting language
- PHP is flexible and compatible
- It is free to download and use
- PHP’s syntax is simple to understand
- It is well supported by leading databases
- Easy to maintain
- Secure and reliable
- PHP is highly compatible
If PHP’s features have captivated your mind and if your aim is to develop a feature-rich renowned web app, investing in PHP for web development will bring scorching success your way. Also, as big names in the industry are using PHP, we would say it’s safe to give using PHP scripting language a thought.
Thus, to make your business to the top in the web development industry, you can hire PHP developers who have excellent proficiency in PHP web development. Also, make sure the developers are familiar with the latest PHP trends and technologies and can meet the diverse project requirements to the best.
