Like I used to say in programming, anything can be done with anything. That is why when you want to start a new project the choice of the language is very crucial. Web development is very popular today. If you want your project to be easily accessible for everywhere, this is the choice to make. And if you choose it, the big question will be: which programming language should I used? For that, this article will help you choose between PHP vs Python.

In the next, we will present to you some points on which you can base your choice between PHP and Python.

Popularity

The popularity of a language is important because it tells you about how many people are also using it. The more people are using it, the more you have a chance to find people you can collaborate with.

PHP

In the web development, PHP is very popular. From 1994 to today: most of the web projects are implemented in PHP. You have giants like Wikipedia, Facebook who are using it. So based on that, PHP can be a good choice.

Python

Python doesn’t have yet the popularity of PHP in web development but his popularity is growing very fast. In his palmares of giants using it, you can count Instagram. The fast growing of his popularity makes us think it is the way to go: it can be a good choice.

Source Code

How the code is written in a language can be a good choice criteria. The number of instruction you need to write to read a file for example or perform some action can define the easiness you have when you are coding on this language.

PHP

The PHP code is quite common in terms of basic operations. If you are not a newbie in programming, you will be familiar with it. It is procedural and Object Oriented. So, not a big deal.

Python

Python code is totally different. If you are not a newbie in programming, you are probably familiar with brackets for blocks of instruction within functions or conditions, loop, etc. and semicolons at the end of instruction. In python they are not needed: semicolons are just removed and brackets are replaced by indentation. Beside those things, there are others which make me think that write code in python is easier than PHP.

Frameworks

Build a project today from scratch is a very bad idea. Unless it is very necessary, it will take you to waste a lot of time to work on some second level functionalities (like session management, authentication, …). Instead of focusing on the main functionalities. That is why you need to use a framework.

PHP

PHP has a lot of frameworks and CMS for various kinds of use cases. For websites or blogs, you have famous CMS like Wordpress or Joomla for example. For e-commerce you can find Prestashop or Magento for example. For application development you have Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter, … This can be a good argument if you want to rely on an exciting framework.

Python

Python doesn’t have a lot of frameworks like PHP. So you can be limited if you want a CSM or e-commerce framework. But in terms of the framework for development, Python has very powerful ones like Django or Flask. So if you want to develop a web application you can think about python by using Django, for example.

Communities and Plugins

You cannot make programming without need help a certain point of time or using the work done by other programmers. That is why you need to take in consideration the largest of the community and the available plugins.

PHP

Like we said above, most of the web development in the world is done with PHP which means that his community is very big. You can easily get help if you have difficulties. They also have a great tool (composer) you can use to manage plugins and dependencies. You just need to be cautioned on the community and the available plugins related to the framework you choose (if you choose a framwork).

Python

Python has started to be popular these past few years (like we said above) so in matter of community you can find help you need in case. You can also rely on PIP to manage plugins you will need during your development. And if you are using Django or Flask don't worry because they are fully integrated with PIP.

Deployment

After programming you need to deploy: give access to your public to your project. That is why you need to think about how to deploy it: it is easy? How much it will cost? ...

PHP

Deploying a PHP project is quite easy. And if you have used a CMS or e-commerce framework, most hosts provide a One-Click solution: for automatic deployment. So you can easily find a host for your web project.

Python

Python projects can be little tricky to deploy. Generally you need to buy a VPS and have some technical skill to be able to achieve it. Unlike PHP hosts doesn’t provide a One-Click solution for automatic deployment. You can see an example here on how to deploy a Django project.

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This is what we can share with you to help you make your choice, we hope it will help. In case you have other arguments please leave them in comment.