Top 5 Reasons to Choose PHP in 2024

• By Amardeep Singh Sandhu

• 9th May 2024

With almost 79% of the websites running on servers that utilize PHP, a whopping 244 million websites on the Internet are relying on PHP!

Expanded as a Hypertext Preprocessor, PHP is a general-purpose, dynamic scripting language used to build web solutions such as websites and web applications. As an open-source programming language, it offers many reasons to choose PHP in 2024 for developers. 

With extreme modernization, professionals have started relying on modern solutions, including Python, React, Angular, and JavaScript; however, PHP has evolved with time, with its latest 8.3.2 version, which rolled out in early 2024.

This blog is a full-fledged guide for web development learners, professionals, and enthusiasts who want to gain an in-depth understanding of what PHP is and why PHP is used in web development, i.e., the reasons to choose PHP in 2024.

What is PHP Web Development?

PHP for web development first became globally available in 1995. Its original contributor is a Danish-Canadian programmer named Rasmus Lerdorf, who created it in 1993. The PHP language is based on C language and is object-oriented.

PHP web development is the process of developing robust websites and web applications by leveraging the PHP programming language. It has been a popular choice for web development for a long time. If you don’t trust us, many popular websites, such as Wikipedia, WordPress, Mailchimp, Slack, Tumblr, Yahoo, Etsy, Facebook, and Canva, are built on top of PHP programming language and frameworks.

You can check out what PHP experts have to say in regard to the language:

“I can say for certain that PHP 7 performs at least as well as anything else around – and I don’t think any language has ever done such a great job of blistering performance improvements with very little Backwards Compatibility.”

~ PHP web consultant and specialist Lorna Mitchell

“I think that PHP is easier to get started for beginners and offers a wealth of advanced features that allow a developer to continue growing and advancing.
Also, I think another reason PHP has continued to grow strong is its continued growth based on developers’ needs.”

~ PHP enthusiast Adam Culp

How is PHP Used in Web Development?

PHP is an open-source scripting language written for a server. It interacts with front-end and back-end frameworks, so it is specifically used for backend scripting. The following are the highlighting arenas where PHP is used in web development:

• It is used to handle the backend of the server side of a web application.
• It can load data from a server and put it into HTML DOM.
• It can also be utilized to connect to different databases and apply scripts to HTML.
• It can be used to create interactive and dynamic webpages, applications and e-commerce platforms.
• It can be used to send and receive emails.
• It can be used to collect data from web forms.
• It can also be used to send and receive cookies.
• It can generate output in various formats such as XML, PDF, HTML, Flash and other file types.
• It can also be used to modify and manipulate data present in various databases.
• It can be used to write, open, delete, read and close files on a server.

What are the Reasons to Choose PHP in 2024?

Let’s explore the primary reasons to choose PHP in 2024 in web development. We’ll go through the advantages of using PHP in developing websites and web applications. One of the best reasons to choose PHP in 2024 is the freedom to create custom web development solutions.

The following are the pivotal reasons to choose PHP in 2024:

1. Free & Learner-Friendly Programming Language

PHP is an open-source programming language specifically built to give commands to the server at the backend. It is an economical and pocket-friendly solution for professionals who want to build dynamic websites, web pages, web applications, and e-commerce platforms. 

Another upside of the language being open-source is that it is backed by a strong community of coders and professionals, thus making it a lucrative choice for learners. You can always gain an edge throughout your learning curve as you stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends related to PHP.

Let’s shed more light on PHP’s role as a server-side programming language. It allows the creation of dynamic web pages that can be customized based on user data and other information. It also allows the efficient delivery of information custom-made for individual users, thus ensuring that they are accountable for an outstanding and interactive user experience.

2. Secure and Scalable

Over the years, a lot of people have bashed PHP as an ‘unhealthy’ web development programming language. However, the PHP developers have been unstoppable since then! They’ve created many iterations to date to make it more secure and scalable than ever. Therefore, PHP also offers in-built security features. It is immune to various web vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). Security is now indeed one of the reasons to choose PHP in 2024!

Note: SQL injections are the most common type of malicious attack that can occur while executing PHP code. In such cases, the best practice is to use PDO (PHP Data Objects), which are lightweight and consistent frameworks for accessing data in PHP.

Another one of the best reasons to choose PHP in 2024 is that the programming language’s community keeps up to date on security patches and suggests concurrent fixing solutions. 

PHP is also a scalable programming language that is able to handle large volumes of traffic. It is also easy to add new servers to a PHP application.

3. Multi-Operating System-Friendly

You can consider PHP to be the jack of all trades since it is compatible with a multitude of Operating Systems. To call out their names, PHP is compatible with Windows, MacOS, Linux, Unix, etc. It also works perfectly fine with iPlanet, Microsoft, Tornado, Netscape, and Apache servers. Additionally, it supports a plethora of databases, such as MySQL and MongoDB, including 20 others.

Therefore, it is compatible with all the major operating systems. It is also a great tool for creating cross-platform web applications, meaning these applications can run on more than one operating system.

4. Aligns Well With CMSs

Another one of the major reasons to choose PHP in 2024 for web development is its full-fledged compatibility with many prevalent Content Management Systems (CMSs). Not everyone in the business is well-versed in web development technology, so professionals leverage the power of CMS to modify, maintain, and update content across various platforms. 

PHP is compatible with many CMSs, such as Magento, Shopify, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, etc., making it a suitable choice for many industry professionals. Therefore, most of the popular CMSs are compatible with PHP-based frameworks. 

5. Treasure of Libraries

 As Python is quite popular for its array of libraries, PHP also has a pool of robust and pre-installed libraries. The following is the list of the various libraries available in the suite of PHP programming language:

• Monolog
• Laravel Admin LTE
• PHP AMQP Library
• PHP dotenv
• Symfony Finder Component
• AWS SDK for PHP
• Symfony Filesystem Component
• Symfony Console Component

Therefore, PHP offers comprehensive support for HTTP fetching, regular expressions, URL parsing and database drivers.

Join Hands for Custom PHP Web Development Services

Are you short on time and looking to outsource your web development project? It is a judicious decision to invest in a PHP web development company right now. With an array of experienced PHP web developers and designers, Deftsoft is an abode for professionals with hands-on experience in the industry. With over 18 years in the industry, we have worked with thousands of clients across the globe, including Fortune 500 companies.

You can contact Deftsoft, an industry-recognized PHP web development agency, to kickstart your dynamic and custom web development project.

FAQs: