PHP is a server-side language which became trendy right after it was released in 1995. It became the number one choice of most of web developers. This scripting language is used for a great amount of topical frameworks and CMS. Node.js is a super great runtime and development environment that can offer you many frameworks. You may use Javascript for the asynchronous coding since 2009 when Node.js was first released.

What’s in common?

When you have to choose the best back-end technology for you, you can consider what is in common between PHP and Node.js. What stands Node.js is the Javascript. Its similarity to PHP is that they are both scripts and you can run them as-is in the corresponding environments such as on the server and in the browser. These two scripts are okay for newbies and experienced developers as well.

What’s the difference?

This section will be of a bigger size. We’ll consider the main distinguishes among the two scripts such as PHP and Javascript that is used via Node.js. Here are the key differences:

RTE. You can use these scripts in the HTML but you have to interpret them so you could run them. The Zend engine powers the server-side PHP while Google’s V8 engine powers the Node.js.

Simplicity. We should admit that using PHP is much easier than Node.js. It’s enough to have only one .php file for configuring a server that will contain s bit of code. You type in the required url and you have completed the task. All you need is a web server that will red your file and you will see its content in the browser. You will need to learn a lot about functions such as callback and closures together with a big amount of lines that you will add. It takes more time and efforts.

Compatibility. You will experience using multi-threaded blocking I/O for the PHP if you want to run several tasks at the same time. And you will see that Javascript runs only one thread with the help of several tricks such as Node clustering or event loop. Facebook has developed HHVM that you can use with the PHP for asynchronous processing.

Which to select: PHP or Node.js?

Depending on your goals, you will choose one of these technologies. If you want only a back-end technology, you will be fine with both Node.js & PHP. If you require both the back and the front-end technology, it’s better to stop at Node.js. You can also choose it for the full stack development as well. There’s one thing that you should consider when choosing the right variant for you. Think what you need to achieve and what tools you ar

Yaroslav Golovach
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