The use of PHP vs ASP.net

Question

How many of you prefer PHP over ASP.net because of its open source nature?

I find there are more open source projects based upon PHP (and therefore more reusable code) because the sort of people who like to share are attracted to the language. I'm aware of a few open source ASP.net projects, but they're not as mature or active.

Solution 1

I did ASP.NET development for three years. I started PHP development a little over a year ago. Both are adequate for accomplishing just about any web application task you have in front of you. At this point in time, I prefer PHP...not because of its open source nature but rather what I perceive to be the main difference in their evolution.

PHP was a solution to a particular problem; in the very beginning, Rasmus Lerdorf needed a way to maintain his homepage. From what I see, PHP has largely grown as a result of people needing specific functionality.

On the other hand, ASP.NET was designed to be the successor to ASP. Because .NET was the cornerstone of Microsoft's future vision at the time, the two were married. The functionality included in each version of ASP.NET is based upon a team in Redmond prioritizing consumer requests while considering marketing strategy.

As a result, while I think ASP.NET is a more consistently-engineered product, it does not necessary offer the breadth of options that PHP does. One is a result of necessity, the other is the result of corporate planning.

I like both and plan on developing with both in the future. Right now, my choice is PHP but it is not necessarily due to its open source nature, but simply its nature. If the source were closed tomorrow, I'd continue to use PHP. I don't mean to quibble over semantics, I just think that in this case access to PHP's source -- or lack thereof -- has little to do with my preference of it over ASP.NET.

Solution 2

I prefer PHP, partly for open source projects and community, but also because I find the *nix environments to be much tastier.

Part of the power of each is it's ecosystem, so a major component of the language choice is whether you want to live in the *nix sphere or the windows sphere.

Two pretty different worlds, and I prefer the *nix one.

I speak, of course, only of PHP on *nix, as I see PHP on windows to be sort of like a fish in a small tank rather than the ocean. If you want to go with windows, use asp.NET, not php.

Comments

[balexandre]

tools like Cassini Web Server do the same to ASP.NET [url: ultidev.com/products/Cassini/index.htm]

[SpoiledTechie.com]

can you give examples on the breadth of options php offers over asp.net?