Technology is an ever-changing field. Now and then new innovations are seen. In the past few years, digital growth is on fire. People are inclining towards digitalization and this transition from offline to online has changed the workflow.

The easy availability of the internet has raised the bar of application development. In today’s era, irrespective of the size of a business, having a tailor-made website or an application is a must.

Gone are the days when people used to order a service or product based on mouth publicity, today the first thing people look for is online reviews.

A strong online presence helps in building a dynamic online reputation. Today, most enterprises are looking for customized application or website development companies.

Applications have evolved a lot over the years, be it in usage or development. Earlier people used applications primarily for text and messages but now applications have touched almost every sphere of life such as entertainment, office work, learning new skills, and so on.

People are more inclined towards applications integrated with advanced features such as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and so on.

Businesses and enterprises hire dedicated developers to integrate such advanced features along with suitable programming language in their applications.

There are a plethora of programming languages in the market. Some are highly desirable and some little less. This is important to know before proceeding to hire mobile app developers.

Among the most preferred technologies used for application development, PHP is a popular one. It is the oldest server-side language used by developers.

As per a report, almost 8 out of every 10 websites that you visit on the internet use PHP. In this article, we will take you to have a closer look at what PHP is and what makes it the most suited for enterprise application solutions.

An Introduction To PHP

We have grown from seeing native applications to hybrid applications to a web application. What is PHP proficient for? Well, PHP is proficient in developing web applications.  Here, we will be having a deep insight into PHP scripting language. Let us start from the beginning:

PHP is abbreviated for “Hypertext Preprocessor” and is a general-purpose, object-oriented Scripting language. Originally, PHP was abbreviated for “Personal Home Page”.

PHP is used mainly in web development projects varying from static websites to dynamic websites to web applications. Being an open-source scripting language, PHP can be used by anyone across the globe.

PHP comprises different components such as code, files, tags, extensions, etc. PHP file has the ability to consist, HTML, PHP code, TEXT, CSS, JavaScript.

PHP can be used on multiple platforms like macOS, Windows, Linus, etc. PHP is used for different tasks such as sending cookies, collecting form data, read, writing, opening files on the server, encrypting data, and so on.  You can get in touch with an iPhone or Android app development company if you need help regarding PHP.

History Of PHP

PHP is one of the earliest programming languages. It was first designed in 1994 by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf and is now owned by team Zend under the PHP Licence.

PHP was initially developed aiming at small projects but eventually, it has made its way for large-scale applications including complicated projects. Each new version of PHP breaks the previous record in terms of offering seamless development.

Statistics Of PHP

Here are a few statistics that clearly depict the popularity of PHP among PHP development company professionals. Have a look:

• “7% of developers prefer PHP 7.1 as one of their three primary programming languages. While 22% of developers prefer PHP 7.2 as one of the three primary programming languages, 17% consider PHP 7.0, and 23% choose PHP 5.6.” – JetBrains Survey 2018
• “PHP is used by 78.9% of all websites with a known server-side programming language.” – W3Tech
• “Approximately 64% of WordPress sites are using PHP 7.1 or lower, with 22.9%, the plurality, using PHP 5.6.” – WordPress.org
• “In our tests using WordPress and Popular eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce and easy digital downloads, PHP 7.3 was pushing 2-3 times the number of requests per second as PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.4 which Kinsta made available recently is even faster.”

Advantages Of Using PHP For Enterprise Application Development

So far, we have learned about the basics of PHP. But what exactly makes PHP the most suited language for enterprise-level applications by an Android and iPhone app development company? Read below to find out.

1. Huge And Active Community: In enterprise application development, there is a lot of complexity involved. PHP has a huge active community that is enthusiastic to help developers. When developers get stuck while developing the projects, they can rely on solutions of the PHP community.
2. Flexibility Of PHP: PHP is a highly flexible language often termed as a general-purpose language. This means you can use it for any size of the project. It can be used for developing small-sized projects to complex projects involving huge transactions. All types of businesses can take advantage of this powerful scripting language.
3. Dynamic Features: PHP is an open-source scripting language, which can be used by all developers across the world. It is free to download. The language helps in writing neat and clean code. It can work on different platforms as per the requirement of enterprises with the help of top mobile app development companies.
4. Diversity And Versatility: PHP allows developers to customize the application. In this era, enterprises are opting for a customized solution. Using PHP, developers can integrate features as per the specific requirements of businesses. PHP developers are usually versed in different programming languages. You do not need to hire different developers for front-end and back-end, you can simply hire PHP developers, and they will efficiently handle both ends of development.
5. Cost-efficiency: Developers mostly prefer hourly rates to do any project. PHP helps developers in the rapid development of the project and minimizes the total cost of development of the project. PHP offers a huge collection of pre-built modules, thus modules are highly beneficial for developers. Full-stack development services further save costs.
6. Scalability: Initially, PHP was not considered a scalable language, due to its inability to function on large-scale platforms. But now, the scripting language can be integrated with numerous tools that make it highly scalable. These tools are designed to improve performance and reduce maintenance time, cost, and effort.
7. Simplified Process: Not only WordPress but also Joomla and Drupal use PHP. These content management systems help users to easily develop websites. That means PHP allows the quick development of websites by facilitating a simplified development process.
8. Saves Time: PHP is an object-oriented programming language. The code used for developing the project can be reused, making it easier and time-saving for developers. Full–stack development services take responsibility for developing complete projects.
9. Convenient Integration: PHP has lots of inbuilt libraries, these libraries help developers to quickly and easily integrate applications on different platforms. Enterprise-level software usually caters to a wider audience and can be operated on different devices as per need. PHP Application can be smoothly integrated on Linux, Windows, etc.
10. Support And Development: An enterprise-level application seeks long-term and quick support. Since the application from the day of launch garners huge eyeballs that are already connected with enterprises, it needs quick support. It is easy for enterprises having PHP applications to get in touch with PHP developers quickly. Sometimes when the original development team is not available, PHP developers are efficient alternatives.

Advantages Of Using PHP Frameworks for Application Development

PHP has some of the top-performing frameworks such as Zend, Laravel, Symfony, Codeigniter, etc. These PHP frameworks play a crucial role in developing high-quality products. Listed below are a few advantages of PHP frameworks for application development.

• Efficient Unit Testing: PHP supports unit testing while developing the project. Mobile developers for hire can write the code for the application as well as test it simultaneously. This makes the development of an enterprise-level application error-free.
• Cross-platform Application Development: Cross-platform application development is high in-demand primarily because of the increasing use of applications across different devices or operating systems. PHP framework helps developers in developing cross-platform applications easily.
• MVC Pattern: PHP framework focuses on keeping the data separate, which means whenever you want to make any changes in the template or the underlying code, you can easily do so without disturbing or touching the other. MVC or Modal View Controller pattern of PHP helps the mobile application development company to have an organized development process and easier maintenance.

Top Enterprises Using PHP For Application Development

1. Facebook

Facebook is one of the widely and actively used social media applications and has had more than 6 billion downloads in the last ten years. You know about Facebook, of course!

But do you know this huge enterprise uses PHP scripting language? Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform, and PHP is extensive enough to help in the smooth running of this platform.

Facebook uses PHP in the backend of the application. It uses hip-hop to convert PHP into C++ that can be further compiled. Facebook has a huge audience and is heavily dependent on PHP.

To offer better performance, Facebook uses HipHop. HipHop works as a translator in converting PHP into C++. It was first introduced over a decade ago around 2010.

After HipHop, Facebook introduced HHVM or HipHop Virtual Machine in 2011.  HHVM is mainly used by the mobile app development company to ease the development process and offer enhanced performance. This innovation is based on the just-in-time compilation.

2. Wikipedia

Wikipedia is another prominent example of an enterprise using PHP. This is why top web development companies consider it as an ideal example.

PHP offers multiple components and can perform different tasks. This helps Wikipedia to deliver its content to a huge number of users globally. Wikipedia developers use PHP as it helps in developing dynamic websites.

3. Slack

Slack is one of the fastest-growing platforms used mostly by enterprises. It offers seamless communication among the team and allows them to share data, documents, and images so on.

This heavily used communication channel is helping more than 3 million users daily. Slack engineering says, “Slack uses PHP for most of its server-side application logic.” You can hire dedicated developers to develop such PHP-based channels.

4. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is the best platform dominating the email marketing world currently. This platform uses PHP and can send huge chunks of e As per the official data, it can send over 400 million emails.

The Mailchimp developers have reported, “PHP is the only language we use for everything touching the production MailChimp application”. You can connect to a web development agency for further help.

5. WordPress

Yes, you read it right. WordPress – one of the largest Content Management systems (CMS) – uses PHP at its core. Most of the websites developed on WordPress use Most of the plugins that you install to enhance your website are in PHP. Website development services rely on PHP for developing dynamic projects.

6. Etsy

Etsy is one of the best examples for use of PHP in e-commerce site development. This company with more than 54 million users has introduced phan which helps the company to offer better service by detecting incompatibilities in PHP 5/7. Phan is a static analyzer for PHP that minimizes false – positives.

Wrapping Up

So, if you have ever thought of using PHP for enterprise applications but dismissed it as a bad idea, consider how Facebook, WordPress, MailChimp, Slack, Etsy are ruling in their respective fields! The development environment offered by PHP is hugely appreciated by enterprises.

PHP is a prominently used language for all kinds of projects by the PHP development company. If you are looking forward to developing a dynamic application, you should utilize PHP.

An enterprise application development relies on different factors such as target audience, maintenance, etc. PHP seems to fit in all requirements efficiently.