Detailed comparison between PHP and Angular to help you choose the right project technology

Developing web applications and websites that scale efficiently and provide Fort Knox-level security is every developer's dream. And using such a product is the desire of every user. Therefore, it is crucial to choose the most suitable and reliable technology for your project.

Although PHP and Angular are completely different technologies - PHP to JavaScript is a more appropriate comparison - they are both widely used in web development (sometimes used together). So, why this work? In our research, we found that "PHP vs Angular" is a relatively popular search query.

This article will resolve the PHP vs Angular debate and help you choose the most appropriate technology for your next project.

PHP vs. Angular: Why Compare?

Before comparing Angular and PHP, it is necessary to understand them. So, let’s uncover what these technologies are, their main features, and their applications.

What is Angular?

Angular logo

Angular is an open source framework based on TypeScript for developing web and desktop applications. The Angular project is led by Google's Angular team and developed with the help of many individuals and the corporate community. Since it is a complete rewrite of AngularJS (Angular 1), it is also called "Angular v2 and above" or "Angular 2+".

Angular was released under the MIT license in 2016 and is primarily used for front-end web development. Currently, we have a total of 12 Angular versions, with the latest version released on May 12, 2021.

Angular includes a component-based web framework that helps you develop scalable web applications. It also has an extensive integration library covering several important features such as form management, client-server communication, routing, and more.

Angular与AngularJS

Angular is often confused with AngularJS . This is not surprising since Angular is a major update to AngularJS. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the differences between Angular and AngularJS:

Angular	AngularJS
It is a web framework based on TypeScript	It is a JavaScript-based framework
It is component based and utilizes a hierarchy of different components	It utilizes controllers and scopes
Angular includes standard directives. For example, to create one-way or two-way bindings, you can only `ng-model`use it with Angular.	It has several instructions. In AngularJS, you need to choose directives wisely. You will use `ng-bind`for one-way binding and use `ng-model`for two-way binding.
Angular's architecture includes structures with templates and attribute directives.	AngularJS follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture to manage data, rules, and logic and express how the application behaves.
With better framework structure, Angular provides higher speed and performance.	In comparison, AngularJS offers lower speed and performance.
To provide faster application creation, Angular uses the command line interface (CLI).	AngularJS relies heavily on third-party tools like WebStorm and other IDEs to provide faster application creation.
Angular is constantly evolving.	Google has stopped developing AngularJS, but they have promised to extend long-term support until December 31, 2021, mainly to address security issues. Google will no longer support it after that.

feature

Open Source : Angular is open source and free.
Cross-platform support : You can build apps and websites for all platforms mobile, web, native desktop, and native mobile and operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Mac.
Performance and Speed : Angular converts templates into highly optimized code for the JavaScript virtual machine. It provides instant rendering of the application in only CSS and HTML and promotes better SEO optimization. Additionally, Angular apps load faster using the Component Router, which provides automatic code splitting.
Scalability : The Angular framework is highly scalable and helps developers meet massive data needs by creating data models on Immutable.js or other push models.
Simple interface : It has declarative templates that help you build application features such as UI views faster. You can also extend its template language using components.
Productivity : You can immediately start creating applications, adding tests and components, and deploying them using command-line tools. It provides intelligent code completion, fast error checking and feedback in leading IDEs and editors.
Testing : Dependency injection present in Angular helps you test your code by injecting dummy or mocked data into your controllers. Next, it evaluates its behavior and output and leverages a non-existent HTTP provider to push a fake response from the server to the controller.
Built-in Components : Angular has functional built-in features such as navigation elements, buttons, layouts, data tables, indicators, etc. Therefore, Angular makes it easy to create intuitive application interfaces and develop applications such as Gmail, Android OS, Google Drive, etc.
Code reusability : It helps you save time and speed up your development process.

application

Angular has been widely used in recent times due to its impeccable features for creating high-performance and scalable applications. Here are some possible uses for it:

Build Progressive Web Apps : You can use Angular to develop high-performance progressive web apps that deliver an offline, app-like experience with zero-step installation.
For desktop application development : Angular is used to create desktop applications that are compatible across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Develop native applications : Angular framework is suitable for mobile devices, therefore, you can use it to create mobile applications.
Create single-page applications : Angular can handle complexity easily by retrieving the key parts of a web page (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) in a single instance. Therefore, it can be one of the best options for developing single-page applications.
Create animations : Angular’s smart API allows you to create high-performance animations and complex choreography involving fewer lines of code.
Create accessible applications : You can create accessible applications using the developer guide, built-in a11y testing infrastructure, and ARIA-enabled components.

Additionally, creating certain applications in Angular is seamless, including video streaming applications such as YouTube and PlayStation; e-commerce applications; real-time data applications such as weather.com; and content-focused news websites such as "Guardian".

What is PHP?

PHP

PHP is the recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (originally, it stood for Personal Home Page ). It is primarily a general-purpose scripting language for server-side web development.

PHP was designed by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 and is now developed and maintained by the PHP development team and Zend Technologies. Standard PHP software is free under the PHP license. It supports almost all operating systems, platforms and web servers at no cost.

PHP was released in 1995 and has been modified many times by its dedicated developer community since then. Therefore, the latest major PHP version is PHP 8.

Usually, PHP code is processed with the help of PHP interpreter on the server and implemented in modules, CGI executables or daemons.

Finally, it produces an HTTP response. This programming language is one of the most popular languages used for developing many websites and applications around the world.

According to W3Techs , more than 79% of all sites with a known server-side programming language use PHP.

W3Techs survey reveals PHP version usage

W3Techs survey shows PHP version usage.

Popular websites using PHP include WordPress , Joomla , Drupal , Canva, Facebook, and Salesforce, among others.

feature

The main features of PHP are:

Free: The standard license of PHP is free. Therefore, anyone can easily download, install and use it to complete their web development projects. Developers can also review their code and contribute to bug fixes and new features.
Simplicity : Whether a beginner or an experienced person, developers love using PHP because of its simplicity. It is easy to learn, is syntactically similar to C, and has a logical, organized structure.
Performance : Database connections and data loading are faster in PHP. Therefore, it is also efficient in database management, server management, email functions, etc.
Object-oriented programming : Like C++, PHP is an object-oriented programming language with useful features such as data encapsulation, abstraction, inheritance, polymorphism, etc.
Compatibility : PHP supports cross-platform compatibility and can run across multiple operating systems, such as macOS, Windows, Unix, Linux, etc. Its scripts also run seamlessly on different servers like Apache and IIS and on devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.
Real-time monitoring : PHP enables you to easily obtain server logs to monitor resource utilization such as memory, CPU, and other data.
Flexibility : PHP is very embeddable; therefore, you can easily integrate it with other technologies like HTML, JavaScript, XML, etc.
Database support : It supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Oracle and other databases. It is database-friendly and can directly add, change or delete data in the database system.
Exception handling : PHP generates fast error warnings because it supports error reporting constants. It allows you to easily spot bugs and bugs and fix them before they cause any big trouble.

In addition to all these features, PHP also facilitates magic constants, cookies, regular expressions, shell command line execution, PDO classes, and more.

application

Although PHP is a general-purpose scripting language, developers mainly use PHP for server-side web development. Nonetheless, PHP has many applications, both in and outside of the web context:

Create Websites and Web Applications : PHP allows you to create modern interactive applications and websites with more customization and user-friendly interface. To achieve this, it utilizes a 3-tier web architecture that linearly supports your server, browser, and database system. As a result, these web-based products are high-performance, able to integrate with many services and facilitate secure online payments.
Build e-commerce applications : PHP allows you to build e-commerce applications easily. You can use PHP-based web frameworks such as Laravel , CodeIgniter, Symfony, etc. PHP enables applications to scale seamlessly and is helpful for both large enterprises and early-stage startups. Some e-commerce platforms that leverage PHP are Magento, WooCommerce, and Shopify.
Create a content management system (CMS) : CMS has become very useful for content marketing. PHP helps create a web CMS platform easily so you can meet this need. It supports multiple databases and can easily interact with various services through protocols such as POP3, HTTP, IMAP, COM, SNMP, etc.
Representing data : Using PHP, you can use tools such as Image_Graph to create data representations in a variety of formats, including graphs and charts such as pie charts, line charts, bar charts, column charts, etc.
Build GUI-based applications : GUI-based applications can be created using GUIs such as ZZEE and PHP-GTK2 that support PHP scripts.
Image processing and graphic design : PHP is helpful in image processing and graphic design. You can integrate PHP-based applications and libraries such as Imagine, ImageMagic, and GD libraries. Additionally, you can create thumbnails, rotate images, resize and crop them, add watermarks, and take out pictures in multiple image formats like PNG, JPEG, GIF, etc.
Robot Drone Control : You can use PHP for drone control. People also use it to calculate, download, upload, and display data interactively.

Using PHP with Angular

If you're wondering if you can use PHP with Angular, the answer is yes. But Angular still requires a separate client-server architecture.

Generally speaking, PHP runs on the server side, while Angular runs on the client side. So to establish communication between them you need an API.

Use Angular to create the entire front-end of your application or site, and use PHP to create an API to communicate with the front-end and database.

The application front-end uses Angular's HTTP request technologies such as GET and POST to transfer data between the UI and the database. So you can transfer this data in JSON format, manage it in PHP code to store it in the database, and forward it to the UI as needed.

PHP vs Angular: Detailed Comparison

Now that you have some idea about PHP vs Angular and their features and applications, let’s compare them to help you decide which one you should use for your next project. Note: Since PHP and Angular are different technologies, a strict one-to-one comparison cannot be made. We'll discuss their strengths and weaknesses in many areas to help you make a better decision.

Languages and Web Frameworks

PHP and Angular

PHP and Angular.

The first and most important aspect of PHP vs Angular comparison is that PHP is a programming language, while Angular is a TypeScript-based framework.

They both target web and application development, but their essence is different.

Now, if you compare their programming languages, TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, or you can say Typed JavaScript. Therefore, a JavaScript program is also a TypeScript program.

Developed by Microsoft in 2012, the language offers optional static typing. TypeScript is designed to create large-scale applications and transpilers for JavaScript and simplify complex component development in JavaScript.

On the other hand, PHP is a poorly designed programming language compared to TypeScript. Inconsistencies in function names and parameter order, slow version adoption, and more are common complaints.

Front-end and back-end

Backend vs. Frontend: PHP vs. Angular

Backend vs. frontend: PHP vs. Angular.

Angular is one of the most versatile and advanced front-end web frameworks for building full-fledged TypeScript-based applications, often used for front-end development.

PHP runs on the backend of a website or application and it is hidden from visitors. For example, PHP performs its work on your web server and the admin area of your WordPress website.

Server-side vs. client-side scripts

Angular works on the client side of the user's smartphone, tablet, or laptop rather than on the server. So this also means you need another programming language to write server side scripts.

This is what PHP does. It is a server-side scripting language whose code is executed on the web server and produces HTML responses to browser requests. PHP allows you to serve dynamic content to users, usually from a database, and is a server-side programming language. It also helps in building e-commerce applications.

Which one is easier to learn?

If you know JavaScript, then you will not have difficulty understanding Angular because it is written in TypeScript, which is a superscript for JS.

However, both are very easy to learn. This is because they are similar to other programming languages such as Java, C, and C++ and rely on programming basics such as objects, variables, scopes, conditional statements, loops, etc. Therefore, learning Angular or PHP is easy even for beginners.

However, mastering TypeScript can be a little more difficult compared to PHP. Additionally, there are many free and paid PHP tutorials available on the internet today to help you master the language.

case sensitive

Case sensitivity means that you must type variables, function names, keywords, and other identifiers in the correct case (uppercase or lowercase).

For example, whilestatements will always be written in lowercase, not WHILEor While .

Angular is case sensitive because it uses TypeScript, which is a case-sensitive programming language. But Angular directives, modules, and controllers are not case-sensitive. Therefore, you need to be careful when using these.

For example, if you want to create a variable in Angular $xand expect $Xthe value, this is not possible.

But on the other hand, the PHP part is case sensitive. So, again, be careful.

In PHP, strings, constants (default), object properties, and variables are case-sensitive. However, functions, keywords, object methods, defined constants, and class names are not case-sensitive.

For example, if you enter a $x , you will only $xget $X .

However, if you xY() then you want to call Xy() , XY()or xy() , that function will run.

Having said that, a PHP-based framework or CMS can define its own syntax. WordPress hooks and functions are a great example. No matter which programming language you use, it's crucial to be consistent when writing code.

Easy to install

Installing modern front-end applications is not easy. However, Angular provides a command line interface called Angular CLI to make things easier. It eliminates the copy-pasting of configuration files and brings the project into the development phase. You can install Angular with some simple steps:

Install NPM package
Install Angular CLI via NPM
Create a new project in Angular

Angular is available for operating systems including Windows, Linux and Mac. So, check out their detailed documentation to check the exact steps to install Angular on your system as there are several different methods for each. However, installing PHP is relatively easy. Furthermore, PHP is available on multiple operating systems such as Windows, Mac, and Linux. To use it:

Get space with a web host that supports MySQL and PHP.
Install the server on your computer and start installing MySQL and PHP.

technology stack

PHP and Angular technology stack

PHP and Angular technology stack.

Angular belongs to the MEAN stack. Here, MEAN stands for four technologies covering important aspects of software development. The four technologies are:

M : MongoDB, a non-relational or NoSQL database
E : Express.js, a backend JavaScript framework
A : Angular, a front-end web framework
N : Node.js as runtime environment

MEAN is an advanced technology stack for full-stack software development as it has both front-end and back-end technologies. Its components are higher level, including the application presentation layer rather than the operating system layer. PHP belongs to the LAMP stack. Here, LAMP is an acronym for the four most commonly used technologies in web development. these are:

L : Linux as operating system
A : Apache HTTP server
M : MySQL, a relational database
P : PHP, programming language

These free and open source technologies are widely used around the world. They constitute the technology stack of CMS, such as WordPress, Drupal, etc.

Performance and speed

Performance and speed are critical. Users expect your website to load in 2-3 seconds, and no one has time to deal with a slow application.

In addition to hardware resources, storage, memory, etc., the programming language used is also a factor in site and application performance.

Because Angular uses TypeScript, it performs faster than PHP when measured on a single piece of hardware. However, since it works primarily on the client side, if the user's machine is not powerful enough, so will Angular's performance.

Furthermore, Angular offers excellent performance on mobile devices, especially smartphones, whose usage is soaring in today's world compared to desktop computers. It works seamlessly on mobile devices of varying screen sizes, interface accessibility, and hardware. Additionally, its native support for building mobile apps is great and provides a higher level of scalability.

Code execution in earlier versions of PHP was very slow. But with the launch of PHP 7 and Zend Engine 3, PHP's speed and performance have been significantly improved. As a result, it becomes faster than many programming languages such as Ruby, Python, Perl and even TypeScript.

PHP 7 is able to handle more than 2 times more user requests than PHP 5.

PHP 8 is also an important PHP version, with improvements over the previous version in terms of features such as just-in-time compilation, matching expressions, and other changes in syntax, libraries, and type annotations. All of this makes PHP more efficient and robust in terms of coding.

Package manager

Programming languages use package managers to speed up the development process so you don't have to design everything from scratch.

Packages can be modules of third-party reusable code that add functionality to a software application.

Similarly, a package manager refers to a set of software that helps you consistently automate specific processes such as installing, configuring, upgrading, and removing software packages. Additionally, it maintains software dependencies as well as version information to avoid missing prerequisites and software mismatches. This way it lets you focus on bigger things like application services and logic.

Angular uses two popular package managers, Node Package Manager (NPM) and Yarn. When you install Node.js, NPM is installed by default. It allows you to build or launch your application, test, format check, etc. Facebook uses Yarn and provides excellent performance, which is very useful for developing small projects.

PHP provides many packages and extensions; therefore, software is required to manage all of them. Package managers for PHP are PEAR, Composer and PECL.

PEAR is the first package manager for PHP, designed to let you install packages in a centralized repository. Additionally, PECL manages all compiled extensions and Composer lists software dependencies while making it easier to install.

The most used of these package managers is NPM, but if you want to develop small applications, Yarn is also great.

Database integration

Since Angular is a client-side web framework, it executes its code in the web browser instead of the database server or application server. Like JavaScript, Angular does not have direct access to the local computer. Therefore, you cannot directly integrate Angular with a database.

What you can do here is build a RESTful API that can handle write or read requests using your database using a server-side programming language (such as PHP, Ruby On Rails, etc.). Next, use Angular HTTP requests to access your software terminal. Also, if you use the MEAN stack for software development, you can use MongoDB.

However, PHP integrates seamlessly with several databases, including MariaDB and MySQL (one of the components of the LAMP stack to which PHP belongs).

Additionally, you can find many PHP frameworks that offer easy database integration so that you can search, sort, filter and present data to your users.

thread

Threads are instructions given to programming languages. A thread is a part of a computer program that can run independently. A single thread works as a sequential program with start, execution, and end. It is not a complete program, but it operates within a specific part of the program.

That said, multi-threaded programs can significantly improve application performance. That's because they can run many tasks simultaneously within a single program.

Web browsers are a good example of a multi-threaded application. You can scroll pages while the browser downloads images, print pages in the background while new pages are downloaded, or play music and animations at the same time.

Angular does not have threads to organize your code and execute concurrent processes. Instead, it runs client-side, in the browser running JavaScript.

So the way you can achieve threading here is to use a Web Worker. They are background threads created in parallel with the main thread to perform heavy calculations and help improve application performance. You can install web workers and use them via Angular CLI.

Another option is to use JavaScript asyncproperties to defer parsing of non-critical code.

PHP is a multi-threaded programming language, which means it is capable of processing multiple tasks in parallel. There is also an object-oriented API called "pthreads" which provides different tools required for multithreading in PHP. Alternatively, you can use parallelism instead.

Therefore, PHP applications can easily read, write, create, synchronize and execute threads, thread objects and worker threads.

Flexibility and scalability

Modern applications must be able to scale up or down based on scenarios and meet customer needs. You can start with a smaller website or app, but you always want to expand it to take your business to greater heights.

Scalability also allows your application to adapt and work efficiently even when traffic is high, especially during celebrations or peak seasons.

Both Angular and PHP scale well and support your application. However, Angular exhibits higher scalability and hence it is widely used to develop enterprise-level applications and websites. Plus, it's written in TypeScript, which helps you quickly detect and remove common errors while making your code cleaner and better.

Angular can be easily extended due to its powerful architecture and robust CLI. You can also use Angular to easily build large single-page applications, simplifying unit testing and code reusability. Additionally, angular provides modules and includes core functionality that you may need to extend your application and add new features.

Although recent versions are impressive, PHP is less flexible to emerging customer needs and growing trends. On the positive side, PHP supports many frameworks such as Laravel, Zend, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Symfony, and many more.

So, if you are working on a small project, you may consider using PHP. In terms of investment, it will not cost you much; therefore, it is a good option for startups and small organizations.

debug

Like programming, debugging is one of the essential skills for web developers. This is the process of eliminating software bugs and making them behave the way you want them to according to the program.

Furthermore, writing a bug-free program is challenging. You may not be able to control this, but you do have the ability to eliminate bugs from your program with the help of specific techniques and tools.

Angular 1 or AngularJS is terrible at debugging. But Angular 2+, especially Angular 9, introduced many improvements, such as reducing bundle size using tree shaking, Ivy compiler, etc.

As a result, Angular 9 enhances debugging and how you interact with different components while developing. Additionally, you can trigger change detection in Angular and reflect changes in the user interface, call methods, evaluate object values, and change them manually using instances.

Not to mention, you have many debugging tools and technologies available to you, such as Angury, debugger statements, ng probes, profilers, and editors and IDEs such as WebStorm and VS Code.

All these features make Angular easy to debug.

PHP, on the other hand, can be more difficult to debug, especially for server-side programming languages. It can take a long time to stop program execution, print the value of a variable, and continue execution. When debugging a PHP program, you may need to perform some additional steps. But PHP also provides some debuggers such as ZendDebugger and Xdebug to make the debugging process less painful and speed up the competition. You can also integrate some PHP debuggers with your CLI or IDE for debugging, such as VS Code.

safety

As technology advances, so do cybersecurity issues. Hackers are inventing newer ways to exploit your website and apps, including your customer details. They are always looking for vulnerabilities in your system to inject their harmful intentions and gain access.

Different types of security threats, including cross-site scripting (XSS), DDoS , phishing campaigns, malware attacks, and viruses, can infiltrate and invade your system. As a result, companies suffer significant losses in terms of reputation, money, and compliance risk.

This is why you need to be extra careful about the security of your application or website. This starts with choosing a more secure programming language (and a secure hosting provider).

Angular uses TypeScript, which ensures a high degree of security by supporting types such as interfaces and primitives. It catches and eliminates errors faster to keep your applications and sites secure.

By default, Angular treats every value as untrusted. When you insert values into the DOM via attributes, styles, properties, interpolation, class binding, or from templates, Angular quickly cleans up untrusted values for modification and makes them safer to insert.

Angular also protects your application from attacks and vulnerabilities such as XSS attacks and HTTP vulnerabilities, and provides ways to mitigate them. Additionally, it enforces Content Security Policy (CSP) and trusted types to prevent XSS attacks. You can also report bugs even in Angular by writing a letter.

In comparison, PHP is just a basic programming language - and one of the most widely used. Like almost all popular software, unfortunately, it's not the most secure. Even after the arrival of PHP 7, with significant security improvements, you cannot rely entirely on PHP. A 2019 security report ranked PHP as the second most vulnerable server-side programming language in the world.

Security issues such as SQL injection, XSS, source code leakage, session hijacking, and remote file inclusion may be encountered in PHP programs.

In this case, Angular may seem more secure than PHP, but you'd better compare it with PHP-based frameworks .

Scalability

The programming language you choose for web development must be extensible so that you can integrate it with other technologies. When reusable code templates are available for you to include in your application,

You don't have to write everything from scratch. Additionally, they are great for adding specific functionality such as a unified UI including data entry, rendering data, etc. Therefore, it saves you time and effort in developing standard functionality.

That said, Angular offers excellent extensibility and can be used with other technologies (such as libraries) and extend application functionality by adding reusable code.

There are many Angular libraries available, including:

Angular Material providing advanced and flexible UI components
NGX Bootstrap library offers high adaptability and impeccable performance on desktop and mobile devices
Prime NG with 70+ UI components
NG Bootstrap with higher test coverage
Onsen UI for mobile and hybrid web applications

If you want to integrate the library into your application, install the NPM package and import the given function where you want to use it. You can also use the Angular CLI with many published Angular libraries.

Likewise, PHP is also extensible and supports a large number of PHP libraries. Although coding in PHP is more straightforward, writing new code to add each feature can be tedious.

Instead, save your development time and use some PHP library like:

pChart creates text data as visual charts, such as pie charts, bar charts, etc.
PHP CAPTCHA Create automatic audio or video CAPTCHA and differentiate between bots and humans
Scheduling to define URL rules to better organize your site or application

You can also find more PHP libraries such as phpAES, PHP Thumbnailer, Mink, ImageWorkshop, Symfony Console Component, Faker (archived but working), Monolog, and many more.

document

Good documentation makes it easier to implement a programming language when developing a website or application. It's like a guide that you can return to at any time.

Documentation is not only beneficial for beginners, but also for experienced developers. It contains complete details about the language, how to implement it, and other practical details you may need. Additionally, it helps you stay up to date with the latest changes in the language.

Therefore, you need to use a programming language or any tool or framework that has well-defined and readable documentation.

Angular's documentation is excellent. By visiting its official website , you can click on the menu to see how its documentation is written in a streamlined way, just like a guide. To understand the documentation, you just need to be familiar with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.

The documentation covers several topics about Angular, including features, framework introduction, components, dependencies, templates, best practices, tools, tutorials, and more. What else do you need?

These documents will help you learn the Angular framework and implement it effectively to create single-page applications, even for enterprises. Additionally, guides and tutorials come with downloadable samples to help you further accelerate your web or application development.

PHP also has comprehensive documentation. Due to its large community and user base, you can find many PHP forums, discussion boards, courses, tutorials, and websites.

PHP documentation is available on its official website. In addition, its online manual is available in 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, German, Turkish, Romanian, Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified Chinese.

This document introduces PHP, its functions, installation and other parts in simple language. Developers can also leave comments on any page to clarify complex content with examples. It helps others to understand PHP efficiently as one can view all the comments that are added and remain forever.

While it's helpful, it also confuses which annotations are resolved in newer PHP versions.

Developer community and support

A supportive and active developer community is always encouraging for developers, whether they are beginners or experienced developers. No matter where you are on the world map, it allows you to better learn the language while also serving as a healthy outlet for networking with other developers in the industry.

Therefore, when choosing a programming language, consider community and support as one of the factors to consider. It will save you from getting stuck in the middle of web development and keep your efforts from going to waste.

The story from the Angular community is somewhat controversial and inconsistent. For example, in the 2018 Stack Overflow survey , Angular ranked second among the most used libraries, frameworks, and tools. But according to the following 2019 Stack Overflow survey , Angular dropped to ninth place. Despite its high performance and features, Angular seems to be losing its community.

Also, you don't see that many forums, discussion boards, and websites to find information about Angular.

In contrast, PHP has a large developer community since 1995. Therefore, you can seek help from developers whenever you have doubts and build a healthy professional relationship with them.

Market demand

Stack Overflow Surveys 2018 and 2019

Stack Overflow surveys in 2018 and 2019.

Angular is one of the most advanced and used web frameworks in the world due to its excellent products. According to this Stack Overflow 2020 survey, Angular ranks third among the most used web frameworks, proving its high demand in the global market.

Since it is used for developing mobile apps, websites, and native apps, its demand has skyrocketed. Big companies using Angular are PayPal, YouTube, Upwork, Netflix, etc. The increased demand for Angular-based websites and applications has also increased the number of jobs for skilled Angular developers. In the United States, the average Angular developer salary is just over $68,300 per year.

Talking about PHP, as already mentioned in this article, 79.2% of websites use PHP as their server-side language. At the time of writing, WordPress uses PHP and powers more than 41.4% of websites.

In addition to WordPress, PHP also supports Wikipedia, Joomla, Drupal, etc. After the launch of PHP 7, the demand for PHP increased even more with its incredible speed and impeccable additional improvements.

In the United States, the average annual salary for a PHP developer is around $60-80k.

Which one is more suitable for development?

Comparing PHP vs. Angular is designed to help you find a better fit for your web or application development. They're all different, and yes, comparing them can sometimes feel like comparing apples to fruit salad. But then again, you can still add apples to your fruit salad.

Ultimately, you need to choose the best framework or programming language for your project. So, consider your website or app’s goals, purpose, complexity, and whether it’s a small project or an enterprise-level application. Angular is suitable for developing enterprise-level applications due to its superior performance, flexibility, extensibility, scalability and use of TypeScript. Therefore, you can use Angular to build complex applications such as weather forecasting, video streaming, games, etc.

On the other hand, PHP is a basic programming language. Developers mainly use it for simple small and medium-sized applications. But you can use it as deeply and broadly as you like, even with Angular. Also, it can be a good choice if you want to develop an e-commerce website and CMS. Additionally, PHP is also suitable if you are building a Learning Management System (LMS) .

So you can't just choose specifically between PHP and Angular. It all depends on the requirements of your project. So choose the one between the two that best meets all your application needs. In some cases, you may even find that they complement each other.

Similarities

Similarities between Angular and PHP

Similarities between Angular and PHP.

Despite some differences, Angular also has some similarities with PHP. these are:

Both are open source. Therefore, you are free to use and modify it according to your requirements.
Depending on the scope of your project, they are suitable for both web and application development.
Both have extensive libraries to extend their functionality.
Both Angular and PHP are in high demand.
They all have useful package managers.
Angular and PHP are both object-oriented, although one is a framework and the other is a language.
Both are excellent in terms of speed and performance.

the difference

scope	Angular	PHP
nature	Angular is a TypeScript-based framework for building web applications, websites, and desktop applications.	PHP is a programming language. You can use it for almost any type of project, but it's primarily used for web development.
Server/Client	It works on the client side.	It works on the server side.
frontend/backend	It is a front-end web framework.	It is mainly used for backend web development.
learning curve	Learning TypeScript can be a bit difficult.	PHP is easier to learn.
case sensitive	Angular is case sensitive.	The PHP part is case sensitive.
Easy to install	It involves some extra steps and can be difficult.	Installing PHP is easier.
technology stack	Belongs to the MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular and Node.js).	Belongs to the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP).
Database integration	It does not integrate directly with the database.	It integrates multiple databases such as MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, etc.
Threading	It uses Web Workers for threading to run parallel tasks and improve application performance.	PHP is a multi-threaded programming language.
Flexibility and scalability	Angular is easy to extend and flexible due to its powerful architecture and powerful CLI.	It is less scalable and flexible for emerging customer and market needs.
debug	Debugging is easier, especially after Angular 9 introduced improved debugging features.	Debugging in server-side languages is a bit difficult.
Safety	Angular is written in TypeScript, which provides more security against threats and attacks such as XSS, HTTP vulnerabilities, etc.	It has low security and is prone to SQL injection, XSS, session hijacking, etc.
document	Angular's documentation is written in a simple language and streamlined manner.	The PHP manual documents various aspects of the programming language.
community and support	The community is smaller compared to PHP.	A huge developer community.
Scope of use	Ideal for building single-page enterprise applications.	Suitable for building less complex, affordable, smaller and dynamic websites.

summary

It would be wise to declare PHP or Angular as the winner. They all offer great performance and features for building websites and applications efficiently.

The Angular framework is ideal for building large-scale applications with complexity and scalability requirements.

PHP is an old player and it's still in the game . Developing a small business website , portfolio website or even an e-commerce store is a great low-cost option for you. The scope and requirements of the project are the most important factors you need to focus on.

Both PHP and Angular have their pros and cons, of course, but your project needs should determine which one is better suited for your use case.