When launching an online business, one of the most important decisions to make is which technology to use. In the past few years, there has been a big rise in the number of people looking for reliable IT solutions. Businesses are seeking strategies to adapt to the growing popularity of technology among their target audiences and achieve their objectives.
Websites have become synonymous with a business's brand image. They show what the business is about and give potential customers a way to reach the business that works.
Since technology has grown so rapidly in the last decade, there are many IT solutions to choose from for your business. Among these options, PHP web application development is one of the most widely utilized programming languages by businesses.
Before we get into why PHP is the best for you, we will discuss some famous websites that use PHP. That will give you a sense of the power of PHP and why it powers 80% of websites.
Websites That Use PHP Development
1. Facebook
PHP's ability to make dynamic content in a matter of seconds has been used by Facebook since it began in 2004. Both Zuckerberg and Moskowitz wrote the basic Facebook application code in PHP when they first created it. As a result, PHP development is now used by a large number of modern tech organizations.
In 2010, Facebook launched HipHop for PHP (HPHPc), a transpiler that converts source code into another language. HipHop for PHP turns PHP code into C++ code, which is then compiled into binary code so that it can be run.
HipHop for PHP was eventually phased out in favor of the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM) in 2013.
2. Yahoo
Most of us probably created our first email ID on Yahoo. Although it is now transitioning towards NodeJS, Yahoo was the first website that gave us our first taste of the Internet. And it was built entirely using PHP web application development. It still has 225 million monthly users even after getting replaced by Google.
3. MailChimp
It's not a big surprise that one of the best-known email marketing companies uses scalable PHP databases on the back end. MailChimp is an email marketing and marketing automation software company founded in 2001 by an American firm.
MailChimp has used PHP web development services to send over 340 billion emails to its 13 million registered subscribers as of 2020.
4. WordPress
The fact that the most popular content management system uses PHP explains its popularity. It enables WordPress to interface with databases and retrieve data.
WordPress is an open source content management system based on PHP and MySQL that is primarily used for blogging. It utilizes PHP to get crucial database components and display them as static HTML.
With little to no coding skills, millions of active daily users can create and use templates and drag/drop website UI components. And all of this has been possible because of PHP development.
WordPress can be used to make websites, traditional email lists, media galleries, online shops, and forums.
5. Etsy
With over 81.9 million active buyers, Etsy has risen to become one of the top 10 most popular retail PHP websites in the United States.
Etsy has grown in popularity as a PHP-based e-commerce platform. It is the most competitive retail company that uses PHP web application development.
In fact, they recorded their webpage performance optimization experiments with HHVM. They also developed Phan, a static analyzer that can detect incompatibilities between PHP5 and PHP7 automatically.
6. Wikipedia
Wikipedia is one of the most popular public information websites that uses PHP as a programming language. Just like Facebook, they migrated to HHVM in 2014 and were able to load page data almost twice as quickly.
It's an open-source online encyclopedia, with 6,471,694 articles on the English version alone. Anyone can add to Wikipedia's content. It also has an online vigilance and gatekeeping policy. It offers users access to limitless material on countless topics.
7. Tumblr
Tumblr is a well-known microblogging and social networking platform. Users can post private blogs, multimedia messages, short blogs, and other information to the platform. The 371 million monthly visitors of the Tumblr community have created around 529 million blogs.
Tumblr switched to PHP 7 in 2016, citing significant performance improvements as well as new language features.
Why Use PHP Development Services
Since we have discussed the websites utilizing PHP, let's know what the advantages of using PHP are.
1. Free and Open-Source
PHP is a free programming language that does not require any downloads or license costs. This widely available distribution has resulted in a sizable and active global community. Continuous improvements in functionality and a rising collection of resources and facilities are the products of a nearly three-decade-old open-source software community.
2. Saves Time
PHP is a somewhat object-oriented programming language that aims to make the code reusable. In the software development cycle, PHP components that can be used more than once save time and effort, which are both very important. That is why almost every PHP website development company uses it.
PHP frameworks like Symfony, CodeIgniter, Laravel, Joomla, and WordPress provide functionality as well as quick and secure development procedures. This ends up reducing stress for the entire team.
With built-in GET and POST features, PHP has been designed for web application programming. It even has HTML and URL script functionality. For companies, this reduced time translates to a faster return on investment.
3. Flexible and Highly Integrative
PHP code is cross-platform and is compatible with a wide range of operating systems, like Windows, Unix, Linux, and macOS. That’s why it is the favorite of every PHP web development agency.
The server-side flexibility of PHP is also mind-blowing. The backend supports more than 20 databases, such as MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, etc. It also supports servers such as Apache, Microsoft IIS, Netscape, iPlanet, Caudium, Xitami, and Tornado.
Businesses can build cross-platform applications with PHP without worrying about compatibility issues.
4. Improved Speed and Performance
Page loading speed is critical for efficiently retaining website audiences. Unfortunately, the average human attention span is only 6–8 seconds. Therefore, if a website is slow, users will rapidly leave with a negative impression. That is the reason why you must hire PHP programmers who can make the most of this language.
PHP ensures short turnaround times by employing
- Fast data processing tools
- Excellent customization capability
- A seamless connectivity with a variety of CMS
PHP scripts are much faster than other programming languages at solving real-time problems. That is because developers designed it with dynamic web page production in mind.
Developers can add PHP scripts to HTML files, which lets them quickly turn static website code into dynamic front-end apps.
In Conclusion
There is a reason why these famous websites use PHP for their development needs. If you also want to create an amazing, dynamic website, you can go ahead with PHP development. However, you must be aware that using this technology requires a certain level of expertise.
Our PHP development company has a long list of websites that we have made for clients. We have many PHP teams that dedicate themselves to creating the best experience for users. If you need help with your PHP project, feel free to contact us anytime.