If you are wondering whether to choose PHP to develop your next website in and want to know what benefits PHP has over other languages, then this article is for you. Agriya have compiled a list of reasons why PHP is so great and the benefits using PHP can bring. Most of them can be boiled down to a time / cost saving theme. So here you have it, 15 unbeatable benefits of PHP

1. Benefits of PHP
15 unbeatable benefits of PHP
By Agriya

2. If you are wondering whether to choose PHP to develop your next website in and want to know what
benefits PHP has over other languages, then this article is for you. Agriya have compiled a list of reasons
why PHP is so great and the benefits using PHP can bring. Most of them can be boiled down to a time /
cost saving theme.
So here you have it, 15 unbeatable benefits of PHP
Free – Like Totally Free
You can’t get a better price tag for the language. PHP is completely free to use, free to download, free to
distribute. The actual language has zero upfront costs and zero ongoing costs.
Royalty Free
PHP is a royalty free license. This means that you don’t have to pay anyone to use it and no one can
demand a fee to use it later on. In fact, using the language has no direct costs at all.
Free From Restrictive Licenses
There are no restrictive licenses detailing what you can and can’t do with the language, anything goes,
you can even fork the language yourself and create your own version of PHP. You can let others
download it from your site, you can use it for personal or commercial purposes, it can be used in any
country and for any application you want. That’s some serious flexibility when you compare it to
proprietary languages like Java and ASP.NET!
Massively Reduces Your Server Bills
While PHP can run on your Windows based server, it’s mostly designed to run on Linux and Apache,
which are both open source software which have zero upfront costs and zero ongoing costs – you even
get future updates free of charge. This can cut your server maintenance bills to a fraction of what you
might be paying for your Windows servers (which will include ongoing maintenance and upgrade costs).
Mature Code
PHP has been actively developed for over 15 years, which makes it the same age as many languages seen
as ‘commercial’ like Java, ColdFusion and ASP.NET. Just like these other languages, PHP is a proven
technology but without the costs.
Consistently Updated
The PHP language is kept up to date by a team of global experts who ensure that the language is always
relevant to the requirements of today websites. In 2009 alone there were 3 major updates to the language
and there have been 2 major updates so far in 2010. If you choose to develop your next site using PHP
you can sleep well knowing that you’re not going to be left with an abandoned language.

3. Works With A Number of Databases
While most people know that PHP can work with mySQL (another open source language which keeps
your costs down), it can also work with a number of ‘enterprise’ databases like Oracle OCI8, MSSQL and
IBM DB2 so even if you want to migrate just the programming language to PHP to reduce your costs, you
don’t need to spend any more money transferring your database to another platform.
Very Easy To Learn
The basics of PHP are very easy to learn. Agriya can take a college fresher and with no prior experience in
coding we can get them up to speed on client projects within 3 months. There are not many other
languages that have that kind of pickup time!
Huge Amounts of Free Professional Integrated Developer Environments
An Integrated Developer Environment (or IDE for short) is a piece of desktop software that gives a
developer all the tools they require to develop a project. An IDE can be anything that is as simple as
Notepad all the way up to Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010. PHP has dozens of fantastic open source IDE’s
to help make your job as a programmer much easier. Even if you are a business, this can benefit you
because you don’t have to spend money on expensive software just to let your programmers do their
work! This is also true if you outsource your development to a company like Agriya, we don’t have to
spend money on IDE’s or keep spending money to upgrade to the latest version.
Runs On Over 90% of Web Servers
To be honest, we’d say that PHP runs on more than 99% of Web Servers since it works on just about
every operating system available, but we like to err on the side of caution
Proven Technology
PHP is a 15 year old language built specifically for the Internet. It is a proven technology and used by the
number one visited website in the world: Facebook. In the top 20 websites ranked by traffic, four websites
use PHP. Other notable sites include Wikipedia, Yahoo, Digg, Flickr and WordPress. All of these are proof
that PHP isn’t a language for the small business or for businesses looking to save money.
For more details, Source: http://blogs.agriya.com/2010/07/15/benefits-of-php/
Presented By Agriya
Agriya is a leading clone script and web development company. It provides interactive mobile
apps, expressive web designs and user-friendly websites.
Website: http://www.agriya.com