Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

PHP

144.3K
81.1K
+ 1
4.6K
Spring

4K
4.8K
+ 1
1.1K
Add tool

PHP vs Spring: What are the differences?

Introduction:

In this article, we will explore the key differences between PHP and Spring. PHP is a server-side scripting language primarily used for web development, while Spring is a framework for building enterprise Java applications. Understanding these differences can help developers make informed decisions when choosing the right technology for their projects.

  1. Language vs Framework: The most fundamental difference between PHP and Spring is that PHP is a programming language, whereas Spring is a framework. PHP allows developers to write code to create dynamic web pages, handle forms, interact with databases, and perform other server-side tasks. On the other hand, Spring provides a set of libraries and tools that simplify the development of Java applications, providing solutions for dependency injection, database access, transaction management, and more.

  2. Syntax and Expressiveness: PHP has a simpler and more beginner-friendly syntax compared to Java, which is the language used in the Spring framework. PHP allows for more concise and expressive code, making it easier to write and understand for novice developers. Java, on the other hand, has a more verbose syntax with a strong emphasis on type safety and object-oriented programming principles, making it more suitable for larger, complex projects.

  3. Community and Ecosystem: PHP has a large and active developer community with a vast ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, and open-source projects. This makes it easier for PHP developers to find resources, get help, and leverage existing solutions for common web development challenges. In contrast, while Spring also has a significant community, it is more focused on enterprise Java development, with a particular emphasis on building scalable and robust applications for large organizations.

  4. Platform Independence: PHP is platform-independent, meaning it can run on various operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is commonly used in combination with the Apache web server and MySQL database. On the other hand, Spring is tightly coupled with the Java platform, relying on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to execute applications. Spring applications can run on any operating system that supports the JVM, including Windows, Linux, and macOS.

  5. Development Paradigms: PHP follows a more procedural programming paradigm, where code is structured around functions and procedures. This makes it easier for beginners to grasp and write code quickly. In contrast, Spring promotes object-oriented programming and follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern. It encourages code reuse, modularity, and separation of concerns, making it suitable for large-scale enterprise applications.

  6. Performance and Scalability: PHP is known for its simplicity and efficiency when it comes to handling web requests. It is capable of handling a high volume of concurrent connections and can be deployed on low-cost hosting environments. However, Spring, being built on the Java platform, provides better performance and scalability for enterprise applications with heavy workloads and complex business logic. It leverages the power of the JVM and benefits from Java's robust and mature ecosystem.

In Summary, PHP and Spring differ in terms of their nature (language vs framework), syntax, community, platform independence, development paradigms, and performance characteristics. Choosing between them depends on factors such as the project requirements, development team expertise, scalability needs, and the specific context in which they will be used.

Advice on PHP and Spring
Needs advice
on
Node.jsNode.jsPHPPHP
and
PythonPython

Hi, I have a project on my mind, and I need some help. First of all, I know it is all about personal preference, but I am a beginner in the back-end part. So, I am trying to figure out which language is better, for example, for user authentication and interaction between the users. Also, I don't know which framework is better for this work. My first thought was to use PHP, but after some research on the internet, I'm leaning towards Laravel. I will be grateful if you have some advice for me.

#newbie

See more
Replies (7)
Recommends
on
Node.jsNode.jsPHPPHP

First thoughts: * As a beginner you need to understand concepts first, all languages out there are great, each has it's own philosophy, each is better suited for a specific situation. Learn concepts first, do something, then you will understand the differences between them and why one should be chose over another for a task * As a project manager you want your project to come to an end. You will get lost in all the different solutions out there (and it's good), but don't get lost too far. Very often I see people getting lost in those debates and never achieving things, like someone writing a book that would still be choosing the font 6 months after (we've all done that it's ok, but we have to realise it)

Chances are your project can be equally good on any different stacks. I heard an interview of someone from Uber who said something like they started with python, went to node, went back to python and went to go, and with micro-services now they can have all of them all-together.

Last remark: from what I know Laravel is a framework for PHP, so it IS PHP. Just like Symphony for PHP, Express for Node.js, Koa for Node.js, Flask for Python ...

Now to answer your question :

  • PHP has a big community, it is great and easy to start with, and you will definitely will learn real object oriented structure
  • Node.js has a big community too, don't worry finding help will be as easy. It is less easy to start with but in my point of view it is a lot easier to keep on going with it on a long run. Why ? Because it's very easy to run a new project, and it executes javascript. How is it good ? Because chances are that your front will also be using javascript (React.js / View.js are crazy good). Thanks to that you will be able to master the language better because you will use it all day (and at first mastering one language is more valuable than barely knowing two) and you won't have to switch languages in your head when you code. And communication between front and back will be in json ... Which is crazy close to javascript.

Alexander is right, if you go with PHP take your time first to do things by yourself like building your own MVC, the benefit is huge and the risk is to never really be able to understand what's happening on a deeper level. (at some point you can switch to a framework though). He's also right on choosing a strongly typed language, problem is javascript is not. This is why, if you choose node, when you start being confident, add typesccript.

Hope it helps, good luck

See more
Octavian Irimia
Recommends
on
PHPPHP

Short answer, if it's a web project (and I guess it is) go with PHP and you can integrate NodeJs services later.

@adzaria (Ezra Fayet) gave a great answer and I'd like to emphasize the first part: As a beginner you need to understand concepts first. For me that means to understand the web, how servers and requests work, APIs and few others.

Now, I'd like to add few things so, this is the long answer:

Why PHP?

  • Everyone knows about the community - PHP is way older so you will find lots of resources and I am not only talking about learning - also lots of helpful tools and packages
  • PHP is great for OOP - not perfect, but with PHP7 got great - and if you are a beginner you want to know good OOP for your future. Let's say JavaScript's OOP is a bit strange; I will not get into details but, let's say "it's not by the book". You can still learn JavaScript for your front-end

Why not Python? Python got popular because of AI - don't use PHP for AI and don't use Python for web applications. I can elaborate a lot here but I guess you get the point.

Why not NodeJs?

  • NodeJs got popular because of sockets - and it works great, but as a service
  • Try to find a good and affordable hosting for NodeJs. How about for Python?
  • I would not ignore the security issues that it had and could appear. PHP is older and, therefore, wiser :)

Now, about a framework... is this a learning project or something that you need to do fast? My advice is to start a small project and not use any framework. However, you can use packages and inspire from a framework's architecture - Laravel is a good role model.

Why not start a big project? You will get distracted, get into details and product design stuff and get scared or border and abandon it. For your project you need an MVP - list of minimum required features that you put on paper - that you will complete. After that you can improve.

Good luck!

See more
somes kumar k
Member Technical Staff at Manage Engine, division of Zoho Corp · | 3 upvotes · 359K views
Recommends
on
Node.jsNode.js

you can choose Node.js Here are my points

Node.js is build over chrome’s v8 and its works on non blocking io. Node.js have huge community and great packages (npm) to help you out in most cases and makes development faster Node.js has been adopted by many multi dollar company Hope this helps😊

See more
Tarun Batra
Senior Software Developer at Okta · | 2 upvotes · 347.4K views
Recommends
on
DjangoDjangoPythonPython

Python, PHP and Node.js all are capable of being used to create good complex software. There are many examples of similar applications built on all of them. If I have to pick one, I would say consider Python and Django. It is fairly easy to develop web applications on top of this stack. Scaling and maintaining the application should also not be a problem given a lot of resources are available online.

See more
Alexander Santos
Fullstack Developer at 3CON · | 2 upvotes · 354.8K views
Recommends
on
PHPPHP

The reason why i chose PHP is the amount of content you can find on the internet easily. As you quoted being a beginner, i think a more mature language would be better. And that's also another reason for following with PHP.

Python is simple and "mature", but it can be a bit hard to understand if you are a beginner. Python relies on heavy abstraction, and that's the reason behind it's simplicity. Python is an "easy to play, hard to master" language, i never recommend it to beginners. Also, one [maybe personal] reason why i don't like to use Python as back-end is: Python is very data-focused. So if your app has focus on business logic, Python wouldn't fit very well. And with that becomes an advantage, if your app has statistical focus, being data-focused or something like that, Python has huge advantage among all other languages due to many great tools the community has built.

About Node, it's like PHP, but less mature. It's as easy as PHP to find tools that can help you, for example, to abstract the database-connection's logic. But to find architectural-focused content, more advanced concepts, it's a lot harder. While that, Laravel's community, for example, has a lot of materials that involves those concepts.

Still, if you are really a beginner, i don't recommend using Laravel with PHP. Do things on plain PHP first, understand the reason behind using frameworks and Laravel's motivation.

Also, consider a strong-typed language first, those are considered more didatic, but less flexible.

See more
Recommends
on
Node.jsNode.jsPHPPHPPythonPython

You cannot choose between Python | PHP | NodeJS Since they are entirely for Different purpose.

In Bird view

Python - Large Scale Projects and if you want a job in big IT company.

Node.JS - Huge computing projects and if you want job in Silicon valley startup.

PHP - Cost Effective and If you want start a business in near future.

See more
Recommends
on
DjangoDjangoPythonPython

I have used Laravel, but with Django you can develop faster, as authentication and admin panel are configured out of the box. It users SQLite by default and you won't have to worry about the database in the begginning

See more
Needs advice
on
DjangoDjango
and
SpringSpring

I am a graduate student working as a software engineer in a company. For my personal development, I want to learn web development. I have some experience in Springboot while I was in university. So I want to continue with spring-boot, but I heard about Django. I'm reaching out to the experts here to help me choose a future proof framework. Django or Spring Boot?

Thanks in Advance

See more
Replies (5)
Recommends
on
SpringSpring

Kamrul Hasan, Don't choose dying technologies with small communities. How many startups do you think use Spring and Django? Use Google Trends to compare technologies. Study the StackOverflow developer survey and job websites to see what technologies are wanted. Few teams can afford to train you to get up to their level so be a life-long learner. Embrace the dawn of a new industry and become an expert.

See more
Sulaiman Sanusi
Recommends
on
SpringSpring

I recommend you stick to Java Spring as you already have experience with the technology, i suggest you master this technology and then if Django seam to be very interesting to you, django is a framework you can easily pickup as python is also easy, you have to probably be able to manage the context switching between a static typed language like Java to dynamic language like python

See more
Gonzalo Fernández
Recommends

Hi Kamrul,

It really depends on the kind of project and whether you feel more comfortable with Java or Python. Both are excellent frameworks, with a huge community and learning material. I've been working with Spring Boot since I started coding almost and I can assure you it's the perfect combination for Java. The learning curve may be harder that Django, but once you know the basics you're good to go. I can't tell you much about Django but you must now by now that it has a great reputation with Python users. In any case I don't think you can go wrong with any of these two. My advice is, if you are already familiar with the Spring framework, give Spring Boot a try, because you're going to find out that it just makes the whole Spring experience so much easier. Let us know what you chose!

See more
Christoph Becker
Recommends
on
DjangoDjangoSpringSpring

It depends on what you want. Spring is Java-based whereas Django is Python-based. The question rather is Java vs Python. I personally recommend Python as it's shorter and easy to learn. But Java has advantages in really big systems.

See more
Recommends
on
DjangoDjango

Both are in active development and had huge community support. It really depends on you what you are comfortable with. Both are married to their respective languages. I choose Python over Java because of its simplicity and readability. To develop in java you need to write a lot of code. That's how java is. The best part I love with Django is its synchronization with Databases.

See more
Needs advice
on
JavaJavaPHPPHP
and
PythonPython

Hi everyone, I have just started to study web development, so I'm very new in this field. I would like to ask you which tools are most updated and good to use for getting a job in medium-big company. Front-end is basically not changing by time so much (as I understood by researching some info), so my question is about back-end tools. Which backend tools are most updated and requested by medium-big companies (I am searching for immediate job possibly)?

Thank you in advance Davit

See more
Replies (4)
Pierrick Martos
Engineering Manager at Akeneo · | 20 upvotes · 351.6K views
Recommends
on
PythonPython

Go with Python definetly. It's used everywhere by web developers for backend developments : API, website backend, workers... but also by data scientists (lot lot of resources, models and libraries in Python it's language #1). For the web parts, best web framework are in Python : https://stackshare.io/microframeworks (Flask #2 and Django #3). Java is good but trend is not great in terms of popularity amongs developers and tech leaders.

See more
Vijayakumar Rajagopal
Recommends
on
JavaJava

As per my experience java is most wanted for web development as of now. micro service is evolving . with frameworks like spring boot supports rapid development. Spring boot + Docker + kubernetes great combination.

See more
sharik zama
Software engineering Intern at EPAM Systems · | 5 upvotes · 350.8K views
Recommends
on
JavaScriptJavaScript

I would recommend learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (most important). JavaScript forms the backbone of web development. And, there are many popular and widely used frameworks like Angular and React that heavily rely on the knowledge of JavaScript. The number of job opportunities are much more when it comes to javascript.

See more
Chathuranga Bandara
Recommends
on
PythonPython

I would recommend Python as the programming language and as you are a new developer, Flask to start with. It gives you a solid understanding on the web patterns such as REST and will get you up and running in no time. However, I suggest you to read and study on front-end technologies like (React or Vue) and databases (SQL and NoSQL) and probably some NodeJS as well. First grasp the concepts (which Python is ideal for) then it does not really matter the language as such.

See more
Decisions about PHP and Spring
Kyle Harrison
Web Application Developer at Fortinet · | 17 upvotes · 373.4K views

Node continues to be dominant force in the world of web apps, with it's signature async first non-blocking IO, and frankly mind bending speeds. PHP and Python are formable tools, I chose Node for the simplicity of Express as a good and performant server side API gateway platform, that works well with Angular.

See more
Octavian Irimia

Both PHP and Python are free but when it comes to web development PHP wins for sure. There is no doubt that Python is a powerful language but it is not optimal for web. PHP has issues... of course; but so does any other language.

Another reason I chose PHP is for community - it has one of the most resourceful communities from the internet and for a good reason: it evolved with the language itself.

The fact that OOP evolved so much in PHP makes me keep it for good :)

See more
Roman Glushko
Machine Learning, Software Engineering and Life · | 3 upvotes · 368.7K views

I chose Golang as a language to write Tango because it's super easy to get started with. I also considered Rust, but learning curve of it is much higher than in Golang. I felt like I would need to spend an endless amount of time to even get the hello world app working in Rust. While easy to learn, Golang still shows good performance, multithreading out of the box and fun to implement.

I also could choose PHP and create a phar-based tool, but I was not sure that it would be a good choice as I want to scale to be able to process Gbs of access log data

See more
Mohamed Hassan
Software Engineer at YottaHQ Inc. · | 4 upvotes · 190.8K views

PHP is easy to learn and you can get up and running in no time, available on almost all hosting providers and you can find developers easily. It has some great frameworks for building your backend like Symfony and Laravel. However, it can be challenging when running an enterprise and needs some adjustments, very recommended for starting a new project or startup.

See more
Subhan Nooriansyah
Full Stack Mobile Developer at AISITS · | 1 upvote · 186.6K views

Websocket is trending this year, but there is another technology similar with Websocket (WS) is Server Sent Event (SSE). Those method have used similar Content-type, SSE is used to text/event-stream and WS is used to binary or text/octet-stream.

The different both of those method is sent. WS is an undirectional sending data both of client and server and SSE is whatever data on server will be push to client.

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of PHP
Pros of Spring
  • 953
    Large community
  • 819
    Open source
  • 767
    Easy deployment
  • 487
    Great frameworks
  • 387
    The best glue on the web
  • 235
    Continual improvements
  • 185
    Good old web
  • 145
    Web foundation
  • 135
    Community packages
  • 125
    Tool support
  • 35
    Used by wordpress
  • 34
    Excellent documentation
  • 29
    Used by Facebook
  • 23
    Because of Symfony
  • 21
    Dynamic Language
  • 17
    Easy to learn
  • 17
    Cheap hosting
  • 15
    Very powerful web language
  • 14
    Awesome Language and easy to implement
  • 14
    Fast development
  • 14
    Because of Laravel
  • 13
    Composer
  • 12
    Flexibility, syntax, extensibility
  • 9
    Easiest deployment
  • 8
    Readable Code
  • 8
    Fast
  • 7
    Short development lead times
  • 7
    Most of the web uses it
  • 7
    Worst popularity quality ratio
  • 7
    Fastestest Time to Version 1.0 Deployments
  • 6
    Simple, flexible yet Scalable
  • 6
    Faster then ever
  • 5
    Open source and large community
  • 4
    Cheap to own
  • 4
    Has the best ecommerce(Magento,Prestashop,Opencart,etc)
  • 4
    Is like one zip of air
  • 4
    Open source and great framework
  • 4
    Large community, easy setup, easy deployment, framework
  • 4
    Easy to use and learn
  • 4
    Easy to learn, a big community, lot of frameworks
  • 4
    Great developer experience
  • 4
    I have no choice :(
  • 2
    Hard not to use
  • 2
    Walk away
  • 2
    Interpreted at the run time
  • 2
    FFI
  • 2
    Safe the planet
  • 2
    Used by STOMT
  • 2
    Fault tolerance
  • 2
    Great flexibility. From fast prototyping to large apps
  • 1
    Simplesaml
  • 1
    Bando
  • 1
    Secure
  • 1
    It can get you a lamborghini
  • 0
    Secure
  • 230
    Java
  • 157
    Open source
  • 136
    Great community
  • 123
    Very powerful
  • 114
    Enterprise
  • 64
    Lot of great subprojects
  • 60
    Easy setup
  • 44
    Convention , configuration, done
  • 40
    Standard
  • 31
    Love the logic
  • 13
    Good documentation
  • 11
    Dependency injection
  • 11
    Stability
  • 9
    MVC
  • 6
    Easy
  • 3
    Makes the hard stuff fun & the easy stuff automatic
  • 3
    Strong typing
  • 2
    Code maintenance
  • 2
    Best practices
  • 2
    Maven
  • 2
    Great Desgin
  • 2
    Easy Integration with Spring Security
  • 2
    Integrations with most other Java frameworks
  • 1
    Java has more support and more libraries
  • 1
    Supports vast databases
  • 1
    Large ecosystem with seamless integration
  • 1
    OracleDb integration
  • 1
    Live project

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of PHP
Cons of Spring
  • 22
    So easy to learn, good practices are hard to find
  • 16
    Inconsistent API
  • 8
    Fragmented community
  • 6
    Not secure
  • 3
    No routing system
  • 3
    Hard to debug
  • 2
    Old
  • 15
    Draws you into its own ecosystem and bloat
  • 3
    Verbose configuration
  • 3
    Poor documentation
  • 3
    Java
  • 2
    Java is more verbose language in compare to python

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is PHP?

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

What is Spring?

A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use PHP?
What companies use Spring?
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with PHP?
What tools integrate with Spring?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

Blog Posts

Oct 3 2019 at 7:13PM

Ably Realtime

JavaScriptPythonNode.js+8
5
3887
What are some alternatives to PHP and Spring?
JavaScript
JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.
Python
Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.
Java
Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!
HTML5
HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.
Node.js
Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.
See all alternatives