A Comparison Study of Web Based Application Development Using PHP and ASP.NET

This paper takes a detailed look at PHP, an open-source server-side scripting language, and compares it to its heavily marketed counterpart ASP.NET. It explores various concepts which are pertinent to choosing programming platforms and outlines the advantages of each language over the other. A sample application called "Personal Media Center" is developed in PHP to illustrate these concepts and advantages, and a summary of the factors which affect the usability of both platforms is discussed at the conclusion of this paper.