Node JS vs PHP: A Quick Overview and Comparision

Alen K.
2 min readMar 30, 2022

As we know, PHP and Node.js are both used for server-side development, they’ve become competitors of each other. With 67.7% and 26.2 percent, respectively, JavaScript and PHP are the most popular programming languages on the planet.

Before Node.JS, JavaScript was a non-competitive alternative to PHP and was only utilized for frontend development. In fact, the languages were utilized in tandem: JavaScript was used for frontend development, and PHP was used for server-side development.

Nowadays, programmers compare the two technologies in order to determine which is superior. In real scenarios, both Node.JS and PHP have advantages and disadvantages, which we shall cover in further detail later in this post.

Development with Node.js vs PHP

When coding with PHP, a developer’s experience is substantially faster and easier than when using Node.js because no compilers or converters are required. The language creates a basic connection to the SQL database and has no restrictions on where it can be hosted.

Node.js, on the other hand, is a tremendous amount of work. In the case of Node, application and framework deployment necessitate more complicated preparation and server architecture.

Database in Node.js vs PHP

PHP is compatible with MySQL and also supports MariaDB and PostgreSQL databases. The code works well with databases regardless of the engines used.

Node.js includes a number of libraries for connecting to SQL databases. It usually uses JSON to create a connection with different types of NoSQL databases.

Performance of Node.js vs PHP

Node.js is an asynchronous programming language that makes use of the Chrome V8 engine to speed up execution and enhance performance. JavaScript is also event-driven, which means that incoming requests are not halted until the previous ones are completed.

PHP is an older technology that does not support concurrency and so pauses new requests until existing ones have been completed. This feature causes the system to slow down and negatively influences the user experience.

PHP vs Node JS Community

PHP has a significantly wider community because it has been around since 1994 and has shown to be a dependable and successful technology. WordPress has grown extremely popular as a result of its support for millions of websites and use of PHP as a backend.

On Statista, PHP is the clear winner in the PHP vs Node.JS debate, with 26% of the vote. Node.js is a fairly recent technology, having been released in 2009. Despite the fact that Node is a popular backend tool that is growing in popularity, but the community is limited.

Backend technologies for the web, such as PHP and Node.js are highly recommended. While PHP has long been regarded as the best language for server-side programming, Node.js is suited for building modern web applications.

Conclusion

PHP and Node.js are highly recommended backend technologies for the web. While PHP has been long considered ideal for server-side scripting, Node.js perfectly meets the development needs of modern web applications.

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Alen K.

Technology Consultant | 5+ years of experience in IT Consulting and Software Development