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PHP vs. Django | Important Difference between PHP and Django

In this tutorial, we will describe the difference between PHP and Django framework. We will make a detailed comparison between these two leading web development technologies. Django is a framework, and PHP is a web development language. Django guides to build and maintain web applications. On the other hand, PHP allows creating dynamic content that will help to interact with databases. Let’s have a detailed comparison between Django and PHP.

Difference between Django and PHP

Parameter	Django	PHP
Overview	Django is a popular web framework written in the Python programming language. It is open-source and used to build rich web applications.	PHP is a Hypertext Preprocessor scripting language that is used to build dynamic web applications.
Syntax	Django can be run easily using the cmd prompt on both Window and Linux. We can navigate the project location through the commands.	The basic syntax of PHP helps to learn PHP well. Escaping to PHP, the PHP parsing engines need differentiate between normal code and PHP.
Database Support	It provides built-in support for most of the popular databases.	It doesn’t provide the facility to choose between databases.
DRY Paradigm	It follows the DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) paradigm, which cut-off the development time and leading to efficient code.	In PHP, we need to define everything.
Security Standards	It covers all the security loopholes of PHP.	It can build a secure website but require experienced and skilled developer.
File Uploading	Django allows the users to upload the files. To upload the image, we need to install the Python image library.	In PHP, files are uploaded temporarily and will be redirected to target destinations by a PHP script.
Documentation	Django has very nicely structured documentation which motivates to learn to newbies.	PHP is also well-written but not as Django.
Extension	Extension of Django file is .py.	Extension of PHP file is .php.
Popularity	Django is used by many tech-giants like Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.	Websites like Wikipedia, Tumblr, Yahoo run on PHP

Comparison between Django and PHP

Following is the comparison of Django and PHP performance.

Environment Setup

Django is a Python framework; hence Python must be installed to work with Django. The Python version should be 2.6.5 or a higher. After that, we need to run the pip install Django command to install Django.

PHP includes three important components that should be installed in the system. There are –

• Web Server
• Database
• PHP Parser

Before installing PHP Parser, check if this link is updated http://127.0.0.1/info.php if this link runs successfully, then PHP and Web server and installed successfully.

Advantages of Django

• Django reduces the development time by adding add functionalities. Developer can develop the project in shorten-time.
• Django is a scalable framework and allows scaling seamlessly and keeping up with growing needs.
• It protects the Django website from common attacks such as cross-site request forgery, SQL injections, clickjacking, etc.
• Django supports the rapid changes during development.
• Django is a machine learning-friendly framework because it provides computational and statistical capabilities.

Advantages of PHP

The following are the important advantages of the PHP scripting language.

• It comes with pre-written, ready-to-use codes that save time for development.
• It is supported by various operating systems, including Linux, UNIX, Solaris, macOS, and Windows.
• PHP is easy to learn, and it is quite similar to the C programming language.
• It offers a high speed that boosts user engagement and SEO ranking by loading web pages faster.

Disadvantages of Django

• Django is not suitable for smaller projects. It is a battery-included framework that occupying a lot of bandwidth and server.
• It can handle only one request at a time.
• It is also considered to be monolithic. It slows down the framework evaluation.

Disadvantages of PHP

• The developer requires an additional interpreter program for the interpretation of codes in computer-friendly language.
• The main concern of PHP is the lack of uniformity in the structural patterns that increase the cost of hiring new human resources.
• Developers need to install third-party tools to speed up the user experience, which slows down the website.

Architecture Support Comparison

Django works on the MVT (Model View Template) architecture, which is slight, differ from the widely used MVC (Model View Controller) architecture. The primary difference is that the template files containing HTML and Django Template perform the controller’s job of facilitating a dynamic website.

PHP offers a wide range of frameworks, including Laravel, Zend, Codeigniter, CakePHP, and others that mostly provide MVC architectures. This architecture separates the business logic from the representation layer. The model part helps to work with the data side of the application. The view part extracts data from the model when it receives requests from its users.

Ease of Testing

Testing in Django is not so hectic because it provides the various tools that simplify the test-writing process. Moreover, its comprehension documentation allows rolling out the efficient websites and applications free of anomalies.

PHP comes with the scalar-type hinting and return type that make the easy to test the PHP application. The scalar-type hinting makes the code more explicit, and PHP can easily track all the data types returning from a function in the app.

Moreover, it makes the test shorter and effortlessly write, verify, and maintain. It also allows to create an error-free testing environment.

Community Support

Django is written in Python that takes advantage of a large community around the world. The Django community has more than 82000 members, 250,000+ questions tagged in Stack Overflow, and 23,000+ watches on Github.

In addition, the community is growing with time, and over time we can expect some extra-ordinary features of this framework in the upcoming time.

PHP has a vast community of developers worldwide that spans different frameworks built on this scripting language. This programming language has more than 5.5 million developers with different levels of experience.

Conclusion

Django is a great and popular framework with support for advanced technologies like machine learning. On the other hand, PHP is an easy-to-learned programming language that can create web applications. This article included a detailed comparison of both technologies. You can choose according to the project requirement.

Choose Django, if:

• The project requires more features at reduced development time.
• If you want to develop an application on AI-based technologies.
• If the user is creating custom software or an online application for business analytics.
• An application that can run on multiple platforms.

Choose PHP, if:

• Web application without the need for real-time changes in features.
• A website with cloud integration for scalability.
• You want to create an image processing app for stock images.

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