PHP vs JavaScript: An In-
Depth Comparison of the
Two Scripting Languages
Shashikant S K
PHP vs JavaScript: Origins
• PHP is an open source language created in
1995 by Rasmus Lerdorf.
• JavaScript was created in 1995 by Brendan
Eich of Netscape to bring interactivity to the
Web. Originally known as Mocha, the name
was changed to LiveScript, and later JavaScript
to take advantage of the Java language’s
popularity.
PHP and JavaScript Similarities
• PHP and JavaScript are both scripting languages. This is as
opposed to ‘pure’ programming languages such as Java or C++.
• Scripting languages tend to be interpreted rather than
compiled. That means they are translated into machine code
via a third party rather than directly. This has an impact on
their runtime.
• Think of it this way: imagine you want to translate a web
page from your native language into French. If you didn’t know
the French language you’d need an interpreter to help you,
and the translation would take more time.
• This is why compiled languages tend to be faster than
interpreted languages.
PHP and JavaScript Similarities
• Another commonality is that PHP and JavaScript are weakly
typed.
• This means that when you create a variable in either
language, you do not need to assign its data type: it is
assumed.
• So, you can write the following in PHP:
$x = 'Hello world'; $y = Girish Bhat';
• Or in JavaScript:
var x = 'Coding is fun'; let y = 'No, honestly';
Another thing that PHP and JavaScript have in common is that
developers for both languages are in high demand.
What Are the Differences Between PHP vs
JavaScript?
• PHP is a server-side scripting language. This
means that it runs on the web server as
opposed to a client machine.
• Server-side programming is useful for
delivering dynamic content (typically from
a database) to users, such as a welcome
message (“Hi, Gayatri!”) when a user logs in.
• More seriously, server-side scripting is used
in ecommerce.
Server-Side vs Client-Side Scripting
• JavaScript is a client-side language, so it runs
on a user’s laptop, phone, or tablet.
• PHP runs in the backend of a website — the
part that visitors do not see! This means that
PHP does all its work on the web server.
• JavaScript traditionally ran on the frontend,
but that changed in 2009 when Node.js, a
backend runtime, was launched. Today
JavaScript is truly a full stack language.
Differences Between PHP vs JavaScript
• Case sensitivity is the distinction between
upper and lowercase letters when naming
entities in the language.
• PHP is partially case sensitive. Case
matters for some things and not others.
• PHP variables are case sensitive.
• PHP functions, however, are case insensitive.
• JavaScript, on the other hand, is completely
case sensitive.
Differences Between PHP vs JavaScript
• With JavaScript and PHP, they both have the
same double forward slash syntax for single-line
code comments:
// This is a comment
• But PHP also has another form of comment
syntax:
# This is a comment
If you try to use PHP comment syntax in
JavaScript, you get an error:
Database Integration & Threading
• One thing that PHP can do brilliantly is connecting
to databases. PHP integrates particularly well with MySQL
• Historically, JavaScript doesn’t integrate with databases,
though that is beginning to change.
• Threading refers to the instructions that a programming
language can handle.
• PHP is multi-threaded, meaning that it can process multiple
instructions in parallel.
• The converse is a single-threaded language like JavaScript,
which can only handle one command at a time.
Speed
• In general, JavaScript executes faster than PHP
on the same hardware. However, because
JavaScript runs on the client, if the client
machine is old and sluggish, that will have a
knock-on effect on the execution time.
• PHP speed has improved by leaps and
bounds since the release of PHP 7,
Usage on the Web
• PHP is the most used server-side language on the
web today, easily beating its competition with
nearly 80% of websites using it.
• While PHP is very popular, JavaScript is near-
ubiquitous on websites, with 97% of websites using
it.
• PHP has a wide range of uses.
• It is probably best known for creating dynamic web
pages. PHP is used by over 34 million websites,
PHP Usage
• PHP is a perfect fit if your project needs secure
authentication of users. This includes cookie
and session handling, username and password
authentication, and two-factor authentication.
• As previously mentioned, PHP is good for
working with databases because it can
interface with a wide range of them. It also
has built-in data security for handling user
input
JavaScript Usage
• JavaScript has become so popular that
perhaps the right question is,
“What isn’t JavaScript used for?”
Aside from websites and web apps, JavaScript
has been used to build all of the following:
• Mobile apps
• Web servers
• Games
Can JavaScript Be Used with PHP?
The answer is yes, absolutely.
• A common example is with web forms, where
it’s useful to validate user input before it’s
saved to a database.
• You can use JavaScript for client-side
validation, e.g. checking an email is in the
correct format. Following that, you can use
PHP for server-side validation, e.g. checking
that the email exists in your database.
PHP vs JavaScript — Comparison Table
PHP JavaScript
Server-side scripting Client-side scripting
Used on the backend Used on the frontend (now full stack with Node.js)
Only combines with HTML Combines with multiple languages
Partly case sensitive Completely case sensitive
Syntax differences e.g. # for comments allowed Syntax differences e.g. # for comments not allowed
Variables declared with $ prefix Variables declared with var or let keywords
Has associative arrays No associative arrays
Integrates with many databases Poor or nonexistent database support
Multi-threaded Single-threaded
Fast if PHP 7.0 or above Faster than PHP usually
Uses PEAR and Composer package managers Uses npm, Yarn, and Bower package managers
Fast to run if PHP version > 7.x Generally faster than PHP
Used on about 80% of websites Used on nearly all websites
Summary
• In this deep dive into PHP vs JavaScript, there isn’t
really one winner. They both have their strengths
and weaknesses.
• PHP is stable and reliable, while JavaScript has
become the cool kid on the block. But that doesn’t
mean that one is better than the other.
• Whichever one you choose for your next project —
and that might be both! — if you take the time to
understand the language, you can be sure that you’ll
build a website or app that will delight your users.
