Node.js and PHP are both software development technologies you can leverage to build modern web applications. Although PHP has been around for much longer, Node.js continues its exponential rise in popularity. According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Node.js is the most popular technology under the other frameworks, libraries, and tools section. Delving slightly further into the statistics, JavaScript, the base language of Node.js, remains the most popular option in the programming, scripting, and markup languages category. On the other hand, PHP ranked eighth behind technologies such as Python, Java, and C# in the same survey.

The survey shows that Node.js and its underlying technology, JavaScript, is favored more by developers than PHP. However, both technologies offer similar features. They are open-source server-side solutions for developers that need to build web applications.

As a web developer, does it mean you should learn Node.js or PHP? There is still a demand for PHP developers despite Node.js's popularity. If we consider their strengths and weaknesses, both technologies have a lot to offer. However, depending on the particular project requirements, one technology may be better aligned than the other.

Code and Content Separation

Mixing code and content in the same codebase has its disadvantages. It is difficult to maintain, and scalability can also become a problem. However, there are a few instances where it does make sense. Not every new web application needs scale, segregation, and complexity. For example, if you are building a local restaurant website, the requirements are clear and straightforward. If there are any changes, they are likely to be minor and cosmetic. However, as with everything in technology, it depends on the requirements. If you need to integrate the website into a back-end ordering system, you will need to build the web application with scale and maintainability in mind.

PHP allows you to mix code and content in the same codebase. It makes building web applications much more straightforward. For example, you could embed PHP tags in HTML, adding some back-end functionality to a single-page web app. Node.js is better suited to web applications where you need to abstract the content layer from the logic layer. Using it allows you to build complex web applications that can scale and are easier to maintain. However, as mentioned previously, there may be instances where a simple PHP solution would be a better fit.

Popular Content Management Systems

The most popular platforms for creating websites that need a back-end Content Management System (CMS), such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, are all written in PHP. With WordPress powering 39.5% of all sites on the web in 2021, PHP has a deep codebase on the Internet. As the demand for WordPress continues, having PHP skills will remain a requirement for some web development organizations.

Node.js is much younger than PHP, so it does not have the same level of market share. However, Node.js is up and coming with many global brands such as PayPal, LinkedIn, Netflix, and Uber running this platform. When asking if you should learn Node.js or PHP, choosing one technology over the other is difficult for this reason. PHP remains dominant, but Node.js is rising rapidly. There are enough opportunities in both languages, so it ultimately depends on the type of projects you will need to complete.

Data Manipulation

Manipulating data is a core requirement of many dynamic web applications. Due to its long history, PHP co-exists seamlessly with MySQL and its variants like MariaDB. It can also query other prominent SQL databases like Microsoft SQL and Oracle. Node.js can also interact with the database layer, but you will need to install the respective libraries from the npm. PHP may offer a more seamless SQL experience, but you cannot do anything in PHP that you cannot accomplish with Node.js.

Where Node.js shines regarding data manipulation is its interaction with JSON. As this notation is the standard for interacting with NoSQL databases, Node.js is better suited to web applications that leverage NoSQL features. PHP can also support JSON, but its implementation is not as seamless as that of Node.js. As Node.js uses JavaScript, the syntax is similar if not identical to JSON. Curly brackets and colons work the same way from the browser to the server to the database, making it a considerably better development experience.

Speed

When it comes to speed, both PHP and Node.js have their advantages and disadvantages. When we talk about writing and deploying code, the developer experience with PHP feels faster. As you only need to code the solution and place it in a folder with your PHP files, the platform is well suited for completing a project rapidly.

While PHP may feel faster to code, Node.js provides much better application speed. Its non-blocking IO model gives developers the ability to deploy solutions that perform significantly quicker. Legacy PHP code is known to be slow. However, since the release of version 7, there has been a dramatic improvement in the performance of PHP-based solutions. Although Node.js is an ideal platform for real-time streaming applications, it does not perform well when the web app is CPU-intensive. In that instance, PHP is a better fit for application speed than Node.js.

Node.js or PHP

When it comes to web development, both PHP code and Node.js code have technical advantages. Comparing the two in terms of which one to learn is challenging. PHP is a programming language, while Node.js is a runtime environment that executes JavaScript, so it is not a direct comparison. If you are interested in a career as a web developer, JavaScript is a core front-end technology that you need to at the very least understand. The benefit of learning Node.js for server-side solutions is that understanding JavaScript gives you a seamless platform from front-end to back-end.

However, Node.js is not a silver bullet, and there are specific solutions where PHP is a better fit. From a work availability perspective, there are plenty of opportunities for both technologies. Although Node.js is the newer of the two, it is rapidly growing in popularity. PHP is older, but it is by no means dead. If we consider its codebase, over 40% of the current websites on the Internet run PHP.

Ultimately, the choice of learning Node.js or instead investing your time in PHP comes down to the opportunities available and the technology stack that interests you. If you are leaning towards the MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, Node.JS (MEAN) stack, then Node.js is the way to go.

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