I have googled it so many times, and I still feel clueless about what language I should go with.

I feel comfortable in ASP.NET, and I have coded some small stuff here and there in PHP too.

1) I do not have visual studio 2008. I have Visual Studio 2005. I feel odd using older version of ASP.NET (2.0) when 3.5 is already out there. If I download VS2008 express, then I think I might lose some cool features of IDE, and the IDE is one of the main reasons for me liking ASP.NET.

2) People claim ASP .NET is faster than PHP, because it is already compiled. However, there are also comments like "Orkut is the only bug of Google, and it was coded in ASP.NET". Also, how come most of the popular websites seem to be using PHP or something? Myspace uses ASP.NET, but some people speculate only parts of it are written in ASP.NET.

If you were to ask what things I am looking for, then it would have to be:

1)Security
2)Speed & Scalability

Please recommend your favorite PHP IDE too. Apart from strong debugging feature, I like how VS keeps all your code neatly organized.

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Also, please mention your favorite PHP framework too. I like .NET framework, but speed may be an issue

In your criteria, you don't mention cost but you imply that you don't want to spend the money for the latest Pro versio of Visual Studio. That would seem to be a pretty important criteria. Most things with PHP are free.

I'm using Netbeans as an IDE and I'm relatively happy with it. I don't use all the features and I haven't used Visual Studio so I can't do that comparison. I did a trial on a number of other IDE's and found Netbeans the easiest to work with. I don't use any of the frameworks.

You can see a comparison of the main PHP IDE's at
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/11/the-big-php-ides-test-why-use-oneand-which-to-choose/

In your criteria, you don't mention cost but you imply that you don't want to spend the money for the latest Pro versio of Visual Studio. That would seem to be a pretty important criteria. Most things with PHP are free.

I'm using Netbeans as an IDE and I'm relatively happy with it. I don't use all the features and I haven't used Visual Studio so I can't do that comparison. I did a trial on a number of other IDE's and found Netbeans the easiest to work with. I don't use any of the frameworks.

You can see a comparison of the main PHP IDE's at
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/11/the-big-php-ides-test-why-use-oneand-which-to-choose/

I actually did download netbeans last night.

Yes, cost is an important criteria. I could also use MVC for ASP.NET, which is free. I havent used it yet though, but I havent used netbeans either yet.

ASP.NET can be integrated with MySQL too, so cost is not a problem there either.

So again it comes down to speed, security and scalability.

asp.net works on MS hosts,
limiting the

  • %age of hosts it can run on
  • and therefore- portability of developed software,
  • potential marketplace should your product be that good

php is faster than asp for certain applications, asp is faster than php for certain applications here are 2 million google results half of which say each is faster http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=which+is+faster+asp+or+php&meta=
php has a larger user base,
php scripts are available prewritten to do most of what anyone requires, and customization is easy

MS products are notoriously released incomplete
asp is proprietary (Vax VMS, EbDic, mainframe client-server architecture. (all gone the way of the dodo)) apple mac ( 20 years and still less presence than linux ( am certain it still going out of sheer bloody mindedness))
pc hardware, in the face of better designs, dominates because everybody could make anything work with it,
php works on just about everything

With a bit of searching you can find quite a bit if comparison info. A large part is opinion - hard to know if it any "facts" quoted are accurate and reliable. The more you look the more it seems that it is a toss-up. For the factors you are looking at, they can both be used to build very large, secure systems with good performance. If you don't care about the potential benefits of the large PHP community, the flexibility / portability of PHP, lots of open source software and the fact that almost everything is free then you may decide to go with ASP for other reasons. I have never regretted the decision to go with PHP (and MySQL). I develop on a windows pc and run the production versions on a Linux server. I have had the benefit of lots of free systems that I can run as-is or get the code and modify it for my own use (and I have done a lot of both).

The bottom line is that there is no definitive answer and the choice will be a personal one (and probably based on factors that go beyond the three that you are trying to use).

http://naspinski.net/post/AspNet-vs-php--speed-comparison.aspx

http://digg.com/programming/PHP_versus_ASP_net_a_Straightforward_Comparison

asp.net works on MS hosts,
limiting the

  • %age of hosts it can run on
  • and therefore- portability of developed software,
  • potential marketplace should your product be that good

php is faster than asp for certain applications, asp is faster than php for certain applications here are 2 million google results half of which say each is faster http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=which+is+faster+asp+or+php&meta=
php has a larger user base,
php scripts are available prewritten to do most of what anyone requires, and customization is easy

MS products are notoriously released incomplete
asp is proprietary (Vax VMS, EbDic, mainframe client-server architecture. (all gone the way of the dodo)) apple mac ( 20 years and still less presence than linux ( am certain it still going out of sheer bloody mindedness))
pc hardware, in the face of better designs, dominates because everybody could make anything work with it,
php works on just about everything

From personal experience, ASP.NET seems slow. I can not disregard a language based on experience of a couple of people. However, the thing is most of the popular websites (that would demand high scalability and performance) seem to be using PHP.

I feel inclined towards ASP.NET because I have been using it a lot recently, and I am out of touch from PHP.

I feel inclined towards ASP.NET because I have been using it a lot recently, and I am out of touch from PHP.

answering just this part,
PHP has a short learning curve.
scripts can be read (canibalized) for proceedures
php.net user manuals have source code samples for each function
freeware PHP IDE, that debugs my code errors and opens the manual to the correct page to ensure that I know what I am doing.

For me too ASP.net is slower than the same site written in php.
perl cgi is fastest by far, but too hard to write.

I should also mention I am more comfortable using SQL Server. Not only I am out of touch of MySQL, last time I used it properly was using that commandline-like interface. Do you guys know of any SQL IDE that you would like to recommend?

I m using Eclipse for IDE on Ubuntu and I like php becaue it takes less time to load on all browsers while an asp document loads quickly on IE but works relatively slow on FF and other browsers.

I m using Eclipse for IDE on Ubuntu and I like php becaue it takes less time to load on all browsers while an asp document loads quickly on IE but works relatively slow on FF and other browsers.

I have been testing this ASP.NET site on IE, and that seems slow as well. However, I do not if I have the right to comment on this, because I have not run the same kinda site for PHP.

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