Ever wondered how many of the big boys are coding in PHP, or how many use MySQL?
I have found that some people have a rather warped perception that PHP is somehow amateur, or not suitable for large scale projects. Again, I have heard (often from Microsoft junkies) that MySQL somehow can’t cut it alongside SQL Server and Oracle. I don’t know where this nonsense originates from.
The simple way to answer this is to list some of the websites that use each technology (correct at time of writing)…
PHP
Facebook - yep, the world’s biggest social networking platform is written in PHP. 150 million users and counting, and in my experience, significantly faster and more stable than competing platforms written in other languages (e.g. MySpace).
Yahoo! - formerly the world’s largest search engine. Yahoo! makes use of PHP.
YouTube - the world’s biggest video sharing website uses PHP technology.
Wikipedia - the pre-eminent user contributed web encyclopaedia has PHP elements.
MySQL
Google - the world’s most used search engine relies on MySQL.
Yahoo! - the world’s second most used search engine also relies on MySQL.
YouTube - and yes, these guys also trust MySQL.
I migrated to PHP/MySQL from ASP/SQL Server and I’ve never looked back. For me PHP is faster to code, in my experience is more stable, has a much wider user support, is platform agnostic and has a very low total cost of ownership. Similarly, MySQL is the business when it comes to databasing, plus it has the backing of UNIX giants Sun. UNIX you say? Doesn’t most of the world use Windows? True for end users, but not for web servers. The vast majority of the Internet runs on UNIX and Linux servers and, whilst PHP and MySQL can run perfectly happy on Windows servers, they are designed with Linux/UNIX in mind. It’s the most popular solution by far and that makes it the perfect choice as a development platform, regardless of the size of your web project.
And just to clarify, before I get flamed by hordes of foaming-at-the-mouth Microsoft zealots, what I’m saying here is not that PHP/MySQL is necessarily better, faster, more reliable etc. than any other system (although many do believe that), but that it is clearly capable of running some of the world’s biggest websites, and therefore should be worth consideration for your project too.
#1 by kat at April 20th, 2009
in terms of jobs… which is more in demand?
#2 by David Hurst at April 24th, 2009
Kat,
I’ve never seen a company advertise for just PHP or just MySQL. The two tend to go hand in hand. A PHP programmer that can’t work with MySQL is not going to get very far, and MySQL isn’t much good without a programming language to create the interface with it.
Cheers,
David
#3 by Prabhat at April 28th, 2009
Most guys from India think that php is a small dall that can’t work good in comparison to .net & java. They should read your blog.
Thanks for this information.
#4 by Siddharth at May 2nd, 2009
As prabhat mentioned the perception in India is that your not a good programmer unless you wirte in Java or .NET and its a real shame how people don’t realize the potential of PHP and frameworks like Rails.
Great going man.
#5 by Maneet Puri at June 8th, 2009
Interesting information, thanks…..!
Siddharth and Prabhat, i disagree with your statements that Indians do not consider PHP & MySQL as good combination, rather India is among few top service providing companies for the outsourced web services projects. AND its has a lot of demand for people with this skill set. Talking from the customers perspective most of the business men here rely on the vendor for technology and to them it does not make any difference on what technology you are using for their website, what matters to them is the cost, if you are deploying a good size website and need dedicated server there is nothing best them Linux/CentOS based server to save cost. And PHP with MySQL is the combo for such server.
Cheers,
~Maneet
#6 by banti at July 4th, 2009
Well, the php-mysql combination is lethal but it is having limited scope in terms of the whole world of Software industry! What I mean to say, In software industry,there are various sub-sectors like software for small to big industries day to day work(ERP), software tools like modelling(cad), software applications like ms-office, software in terms of webapps,so many…Now, each area require diferent technology…like with asp.net and oracle database, you cannot create the software which run in mobile devices. Now, in our new IT world, internet is the big boom and thus, the webapps. Now, coming to webapps, they can be again very big b2b apps to third party tools that run to software to the small scale shopping cart websites….Now, in case of the last third point, we can think of about PHP-MYsql…Why not for others,the reasons are many…for big b2b system, u need big scalable and reliable database where mysql cannot reach…compare to oracle and sqlserver with mysql is like comparing kinder garden kid with the postgraduate guy…and same goes with PHP..say, like we need a application which will read something from other file..that can be word or xml, java or .net giving flexibility to read those files are bigger then anything…like how many parsers php can support …and in some case even .net is better as it is more native to the word technology….so the last area, where php-mysql is best is those typical internet web applications, where it is currently used. i.e. small shopping cart to webapps like social marketing sites….BUT BUT BUT, as the things always move,the challenges are many..i can see two mainly, first is rich UI and second is oracle buying sun. For the first point, Rich UI: where the world is moving, what the world wants…flex,silver light all these technology..the super experience from user prospective and so much flexibility..it is the decline curver now for the asp,jsp and php like technologies…second oracle buying Sun…business decision may come to stop mysql and support oracle database…!! i can visulize that this will happen and seeing so many court cases but still oracle will go further…it seems that down the time, 2 years for life for mysql from this presecptive and 2 year for php from rich UI prespective….till then enjoy this LAMP road…LINUX,APACHE,MYSQL AND PHP…
#7 by David Hurst at July 4th, 2009
Uhm, yes. Not really sure I understand your point, but I’m sure there’s one in there. I don’t think I ever put forward the idea that PHP/MySQL was a software tool.
#8 by banti at July 4th, 2009
Well, David, what is your thought regarding rich UI presence and PHP future AND future of MYSQL in oracle hand?
#9 by David Hurst at July 6th, 2009
Banti,
I still haven’t got a clue what you’re on about! “Oracle hand”? I think something is being lost in translation here.
I assume by “Rich UI” you are talking about advanced user interfaces on the web. PHP has nothing to do with this because it is a server side scripting language, whereas the UI, particularly the “rich” elements of it, take place client side.
I use PHP for server side scripting.
I use MySQL as my database server.
I use Javascript with the MooTools framework for rich UI.
You need to use specific tools for specific purposes. The above selection represents a well supported, reliable, stable, open-source choice. Javascript can deliver cross-browser compatible and search engine friendly UI experiences that are simply not possible with tools like Flash and Silverlight etc.
Oracle is just another database server. It doesn’t have the low TCO of MySQL and therefore doesn’t really fit into the open source model particularly well.
Flash etc. is a completely different thing, and my focus as a web developer is on solutions that are search engine compliant and accessibility standards compliant.
Maybe that answers your question.
Cheers,
David
#10 by Renjith at May 16th, 2010
A Small update..
Vodafone also uses PHP Mysql combination in
Following countries: Czech and Turkey