PHP vs JavaScript – Difference Between Them

Key Difference between PHP and JavaScript

PHP is a server-side scripting language, whereas Javascript is a client-side scripting language.
PHP doesn’t execute within the browser, whereas Javascript executes within the browser.
PHP supports databases, whereas Javascript doesn’t support databases.
PHP accepts both upper cases and lower case variables, while Javascript doesn’t.
When we compare PHP and JavaScript, PHP doesn’t support Objects & Arrays interchangement, whereas JavaScript supports Objects & Arrays interchangement.

PHP

Is not fair to compare PHP vs JavaScript, as they both have different purposes for web-site development. PHP is a server-side scripting language while JavaScript is a client-side scripting language. In fact, the most dynamic website is created when we use functions of both these languages together. If PHP is like a paint-brush to paint picture, then JavaScript is a paint-color.

PHP stands for “Hypertext Preprocessor”, is a programming language embedded in HTML that does all sort of things like build custom web content, send and receive cookies, evaluate form data sent from a browser, etc. It is integrated with number of popular databases like Postgre SQL, Oracle, Sybase, SQL, and MySQL. PHP also supports major protocols like IMAP, POP3 and LDAP.

PHP can handle forms, save data to a file, return data to the user, gather data from files, etc.

Example: Let say a website that takes user to view the order status after logging in. By PHP coding, you would send a query to the database that would then output the specific user information based on what information is in the database

JavaScript

While, JavaScript is designed for creating network-centric applications. With JavaScript, web pages will no longer be static HTML and allows the program that interacts with the user, control the browser, and dynamically create the HTML content. The advantage of JavaScript is that it has less server interaction, allowing you to validate user input before sending the page off which means less load on your server and less server traffic. JavaScript allows immediate feedback to the visitors.

Example: When you hover over the menu tab on the web-page, the drop down effect is done through JavaScript.

Note: JavaScript now supports server-side execution via NodeJS

Difference between Javascript vs PHP

Here is the main difference between JavaScript and PHP:

Features	Java-Script	PHP
Developed by	Brendan Eich (1995)	Rasmus Lerdorf (1994)
Object-oriented	Yes	Yes
Easy to use existing code	Yes	Yes
Server side scripting language	No	Yes
Client side scripting language	Yes	No
Accepts both upper case and lower case boolean variable	No	Yes
Case sensitive to variables	Yes	Yes
Case sensitive in function	Yes	No
Objects & Arrays interchangeable	Yes	No
Requires HTTP to execute	Yes	Yes
Updates files on server	No	Yes
Execute with browser window	Yes	No
Supports framework	Yes	Yes
Platform Independent	Yes	Yes
Open Source	Yes	Yes
Support database	No	Yes
Memory Management (garbage collection)	Yes	Yes
Library	Yes	Yes
Exceptional Handling	Yes	Yes
Performance	Fast	Slow
Support of features	Less	More

PHP vs JavaScript: Repository

Here is the main difference between PHP and JavaScript for repository:

Repository	JavaScript	PHP
Github	404077	387773
Stack-Overflow	1639397	1207635
Source-Forge	10814	25090

Trend of JavaScript vs PHP

Job trends from indeed.com shows millions of jobs search for Java-script and PHP from thousands of job sites. It relatively shows the growing and falling trend of the job for both languages in consecutive years.

Likewise, regional interest of people for JavaScript or PHP are also highlighted over-here. In this PHP vs JS graph, though we can see the fall of interest of JavaScript versus PHP languages over the period of time due to introduction of new languages, JavaScript still remains on top of PHP.