PHP has been evolving ever since it was designed in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf. PHP is a programming language at server-side that is used for scripting that is designed to develop websites. At first, the meaning of PHP was Personal Home Page and then it has been modified to Hypertext Preprocessor.  

Most of the leading social networking sites like Facebook and reputed organizations such as Harvard University are both based on PHP that makes PHP popular and increase its reputation and credibility.

The reason is because websites developed with the use of PHP can easily be improved, maintained and updated from time to time. However, everything has its pros and cons, thus PHP also has some advantages and disadvantages which will be discussed in this article. 

Advantages Of PHP

PHP is very popular because of its many advantages. PHP is most suited in developing a website. Here are the advantages of using PHP: 

1. Cross Platform

All the applications that are based on PHP can run on any types of platforms since PHP is supported by majority of Operating Systems, such as  Solaris, UNIX, Windows and Linux. Those platforms can be used to write code in PHP as well as view web pages or run the PHP based applications.

PHP easily interfaces with both MySQL and Apache. A simple integration of PHP can be finished with numerous other programming language such as Java and there’s no need of redevelopment. Therefore, it saves both time and money, giving it an important advantage. 

2. Easy database connection

Programming language such as PHP is commonly used on the internet and is required to connect to the database all the time. Therefore, it is mandatory for having a feature that could help PHP to easily connect to database. Many websites like ecommerce websites needs great database management system.   

PHP includes a built-in module that helps it in easily connecting with database. Therefore, PHP has a great demand in the field of web development where a data driven website must be developed. PHP reduces the time required in developing the web application that requires a database management system. 

3. Easy to use

PHP is commonly used because it is much easier to use compared to other programming languages that are complex. PHP is easy, fluent, clean and organized, that is why it is helpful to new users. PHP also has a well-organized syntax and at the same time logical.

You don’t need intensive studying or manual to be able to use PHP. Command functions of PHP are easy to understand. Users can easily recognize the use of the commands from the name itself. PHP syntax is somewhat similar to C making it easy to code for new PHP user.   

Speed is one of the primary requirements of web development. There are many people who face the problem of slow internet connection and slow data speed. Therefore, many people across the globe prefer a much faster loading website. Compared to other programming languages, PHP is one of the fastest programming languages. 

Normally, it will take you a lot of time whenever you try to fetch certain data from the database. It consumes a lot of time to connect to the database and then executing the statement and finally getting the data. PHP do these tasks quicker than other scripting languages. PHP is fast in both connecting to the database and in using other necessary app.   

Because of it’s high speed, PHP has an advantage over other programming languages.

4. Open source

One of the great advantages of using PHP is that it is Open Source, making it readily available and entirely free. Compared to other programming languages, which requires payment for the support files, PHP is open to everyone at all times.

If you're a beginner in using PHP, you don’t need to worry about the support because PHP is maintained and developed by a group of PHP developers who helps in making support community for PHP that will help people in PHP implementation and manipulation.

Disadvantages of PHP

All programming languages such as PHP has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are the disadvantages of using PHP : 

1. Security 

A website must be as secure as possible, so that both the owner and the users are safe and protected. PHP is an Open Source making it free. It is an advantage of PHP but being an open source also poses a threat to a PHP based website.

2. Poor Error Handling

Most of PHP developers believe that PHP has a poor quality of handling errors. It lacks debugging tools that are required to look for errors and warnings. PHP has lesser number of debugging tools compared to other programming languages.