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.
in terms of jobs… which is more in demand?
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
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.
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.
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
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…
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.
Well, David, what is your thought regarding rich UI presence and PHP future AND future of MYSQL in oracle hand?
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
A Small update..
Vodafone also uses PHP Mysql combination in
Following countries: Czech and Turkey
This is bull s***!
You’re leading viewers to think that google & yahoo uses mysql for web search. Google does not use MySql. It uses BigTable – a structured storage system.
If you want to be impressed, go to wiki’s PostgreSQL page & scroll down to the ‘Prominent Users’ section. I don’t see a list like that anywhere for MySql
No Nidhi, it is not bovine excrement, and I don’t appreciate abusive comments on my blog.
At no point in my post do I say that Google uses MySQL for its core search systems. However at time of writing, Google most certainly DID use MySQL, and as far as I can see, it still does. My information comes directly from the MySQL website: http://www.mysql.com/customers/view/?id=555
The post has nothing to do with the PostgreSQL vs MySQL debate (which is largely pointless with the latest iterations of each), it was specifically highlighting that open source database servers (such as MySQL, and indeed your precious PostgreSQL, can cut it against commercial servers).
Get off your high horse and stop being so defensive. All systems have their uses – and do some research before you accuse a very experienced industry professional of talking crap.
(rolls eyes)
You can view commercial case studies for MySQL here: http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/case-studies/
This list includes:
Adobe
Intel
Symantec
Sony
BBC
Dell
Yahoo!
Ticketmaster
Sage
SonicWALL
Alcatel Lucent
Leapfrog
Sagem Monetel
Booking.com
Gumtree
Carphone Warehouse
iStockphoto
ContactLab
Craigslist
Lycos
So, some of the biggest companies and websites in the world then…
Uh, sorry. Wrong way of expressing my thoughts. I respect you for what you are & what you do & do not intend to abuse you.
It’s my view that visitors will be more inclined to think that google & yahoo uses MySQL at its core.
I’ve been a developer for almost the past 10 years & i’d like to share some tiny opinions from my experience here particularly to the ones who are pondering about PHP Vs ASP.Net & database servers.
When you wish to decide on a web development platform, you usually end up considering a couple of important things – Rapid Development & Performance
If you have a client up your throat forcing you to finish the project yesterday, you know the importance of rapid development.
In my opinion, ASP.Net works out better (especially with ASP.Net & SQL Server) . I personally accomplish tasks faster in ASP.Net than PHP. It has more tools to get more common tasks done quickly. If you’re new, there’s no reason why you should not give both a big try & find out yourself. PHP could still suit your needs.
When it comes to performance, there’s no question about it. ASP.Net (not classic ASP) is definitely the winner. There’s much debate about this & to hardcore fans who get on the PHP bandwagon, this is sort of a religious issue where facts aren’t considered and ignored. They could be calling me a stooge, a microsoft junkie etc, for stating this. But facts are facts & numbers speak – view this excellent benchmark for instance: http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/benchmarks.html
And if you know both technologies, it shouldn’t take much time to figure it out yourself.
If you’re wondering about which database to use, well, whatever you pick could be right for you. There’s no one perfect choice that suits all needs. For an enterprise level requirement, i’d rate (in order) Oracle, DB2, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server & then MySQL. You don’t have to go for No 1 in your mind either. I have successfully (& happily) implemented Firebird in many of my apps which i don’t consider in my top db-server list. I guess experience will teach you a lot here.
In case you want to decide on a free DB server, go through this page throughly – http://www.wikivs.com/wiki/MySQL_vs_PostgreSQL It’ll be worth your time.
I am involved in running numerous server farms and I have yet to see a case where ASP.Net outperforms PHP in a real world environment. In order to use ASP.Net, you have to have a bloated Windows server installation (and crippling license). If you want to get maximum performance from available hardware, LAMP is the proven way forward. There’s a good reason why most of the Internet runs on Linux and UNIX.
I also dispute that ASP.Net has “more tools to get more common tasks done quickly”. I recently converted an ASP.Net site to PHP and reduced the amount of code by over 50%. It will never be the case that a closed-source proprietary development platform has more tools than an open-source community developed platform. PHP features a huge number of functions out of the box, and you can extend those in a matter of moments using PEAR.
You have gone completely off topic anyway. This page isn’t a boring ASP vs PHP dispute. I suggest anyone actually interested in that topic does plenty of Googling rather than rely on the links provided by Nidhi. Your information about MySQL performance in an enterprise environment appears to be out-of-date too. The latest version of MySQL offers broadly similar performance to PostgreSQL, and in many cases out-performs MS SQL.
I started as a .net developer and moved to PHP in profession but still code in .net and android platform.. The passion of development increase when I touch an open source language like PHP… In .net I was a spoon feeder… get into the frame have the api’s and framework classes rest dll will take care… Of-course
I had the same view as you explained ….Net and Java are Superior in language and PHP,PERL and other scripting languages are off-line. To be honest after working with PHP I started respecting all languages and there is good and bad for every language but one thing for sure… if you close any system it will not be so sweet to enjoy.. same with all the DLL’s 
. Regarding performance I saw many systems configured better or best with PHP, Memcached and Mysql… we need to keep in mind these are all different piece of software we need to combine it in the best way for our use… but I think in case of .net platform(any language ASP,C#,VB…), it is done by MS… I like to make own code rules than framework limitations……..
Yes , Absolutely .
I dont think why there is so much negative thinking about PHP/MYSQL when it comes to large scales.
We have numerous PHP/MYSQL powered websites as shown above running successfully.
I personally like PHP because its really very much quicker to develop an app in this than any other languages.This is because presence of PHP resources as well.
Exactly my thought people have put this tag that php isn’t good enough for big projects then i saw that facebook was using it. Which proves all the doubters of php totally and uterly wrong.
I recommend php /Mysql.I early used ASP.net to create websites and applications and now I am focussed to php and other opensource technologies for my clients.We recommend php is good for large scale applications.We are now very good in php and other opensource tools such as WordPress and Magento
Hey David,
I am a web design student currently taking a PHP class. I found it very interesting that large sites are using PHP. It makes sense, however, that a site like Facebook, with a huge amount of user interaction from an extremely diverse base, is using an open source, server side language. The avoidance of browser differences alone makes PHP a good choice. Is there some literature or web resources you would recommend to a student of PHP?
Thanks,
Hi Joe,
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I’m a big fan of Larry Ullman’s books on PHP/MySQL, and once you’re up to speed, I recommend studying for the Zend Certified Engineer exam.
Best wishes,
David
Thanks for the reply. I will be sure to look those up.
Joe
Hi,
I’m a web developer from Mauritius working with PHP and MySQL daily and I personnally think that it is rediculous to say that these technologies do not work for large projects. This is nothing more than a myth and I guess people spreading it haven’t even taken the time to explore what PHP and it’s community have to offer to web developers (PEAR, strong & stable frameworks, etc.). As David mentionned, many leading websites have included PHP and MySQL in their development cycle successfully.
Valéry
Hi David,
What do you think about the YII framework for PHP?
Thanks and regards,
Hi Camilo,
I haven’t tried it yet – been meaning to. I have an idea in my head for an application that would suit YII perfectly though, so I’m going to give it a whirl. I’ll post back my thoughts.
Regards,
David
I find it funny how under-rated php has become. It makes sense Yahoo is using PHP, I’d be surprised if they weren’t (the guy who originally developed PHP works for them.)I know zuckerburg was using mysql when he first started, but is facebook still using it? I thought youtube used Python….. Also Hurst, what are your opinions regarding PDO and MYSQLI?
PHP ALL THE WAY
great article.. For now im a freelance developer.. I use PHP and MYSQL because of hosting problem.. I have a client which created a site in asp and later told me that the hosting he bought doesnt support asp.. One of the few reason i use php is because of this.. hosting service is not a problem at all in php.. Other thing is that php has many source codes spread all over the net.. You could easily find a solution if you have a problem in php
absolutely the best PHP 4 lyf, I gt a feeling php wil mek me a millionaire.
hey i just started using html to build my website so can any one give me any close hints wat is all these php and my sql bcz i got a project in my skul to make a web page so give me some ideas to make gud web pages
What is php and what is asp.net