Maybe because ASP.NET is a Microsoft product and PHP isn't (and it's open source)?

Well, I guess it also has to do with hosting. You'll probably find a LAMP server more easily than a ASP server.

Back in the day, when .Net 1.1 was still shiny and new, there were similar arguments as to why most web designers preferred PHP to JSP. The learning curve for PHP is much more human friendly than it is for JSP, so that was sort of understandable. Maybe it became a question of habit after that?

PHP is still fun and powerful, but working in ASP.NET has become so incredibly smooth these days, I believe most common web projects can be sorted out with little or no actual coding.

I'd agree that it's related to costs (hosting and other).

Even just a couple years ago, it was still fairly expensive (relative to LAMP) to get a database driven ASP.NET app hosted. On top of that, free versions of the IDE and database for development purposes are relatively recent events too. Five years ago, you had to front something like $1,500 to get started with .NET and SQL Server, and then expect to pay ~$50/mo to host even a basic app.

The cost difference between developing and hosting ASP.NET vs LAMP today is negligible, but the damage has already been done.

Hopefully, we'll see that begin to change over time, now that the IDE/database are free and hosting costs are more competitive. I don't think it'll happen overnight though.

Maybe because ASP.NET is a Microsoft product and PHP isn't (and it's open source)?

Agree.

i’m developing on Leopard. Guess what language I’m not interested in…

I have a few thoughts about why, from my own personal experience.

1) PHP is all there is to PHP. When I google PHP, I get PHP stuff. .NET is certainly more powerful, more adept at developing for multiple platforms, but it always felt like there was "one more thing". For example, I google to find a code snippet for an ASP.NET project and I get C#, and Javascript, and conflicting .NET versions .... just when I felt like I was getting the hang of it, I found out I needed to pick up C#, or learn something new about Windows vs. Linux servers. It was just very hard to find what I was looking for.

2) Price. Linux hosting is cheaper ... often way cheaper. I can host multiple projects easily on almost any "out of the box" Linux hosting package, but it took WORK to find a similar, yet not quite as good, deal on Windows hosting.

3) PHP is ubiquitous. In the same way that Apple is only just now making a real dent in the Windows market share (yeah, I said it), ASP.NET is the basis for fewer well know projects that PHP. We all know Wordpress. Do we all know DotNetNuke? I'm not sure. And so when I need help, or snippets, or anything, there is a landslide of PHP info and not so much for ASP.NET.

All that being said, I aspire to know both, be familiar with both. I simply get more bang for for my buck spending and hour learning something new in PHP than is ASP.NET. I learn more, faster, and learn more practical skills when I focus on PHP. YMMV.

I think it's totally cost related and community related.

Pick a newbie and tell him to find everything he needs to be up and running with PHP. I suppose it would take an hour before setting a server, finding an editor and making a "hello world" script.

With ASP.NET it'd probably ask for some system updates, the editor'd probably as for the latest .net runtime and they would end up using mssql for a 5 page site.

my 2 cents.

Its all about hosting and the price of asp.net hosters. I can get cPanel and php5/ruby/mysql5 environmet in about 6/9€ a month..

I would definetly try asp.net mvc etc > share some good hosters.

From my experience as a web designer/developer who highly prefers PHP over ASP it's mainly an issue of free open-source. From a designer's perspective ASP isn't a logical language. That is to say it has a very Microsoft feel to it, or that it doesn't have the same feel as other web languages. Keep in mind these are only my personal opinions. I gave ASP a shot a couple years ago. Then I tried PHP and I haven't looked back. There are a number of communities out there related to PHP so information and help is widespread. Also frameworks like CodeIgniter and Kohana you don't get with ASP.

To be honest I really hope that web languages like Ruby on Rails and PHP dominate the vast majority of the web. I don't think enough people use these enough.

It's all about hosting costs.

I think learning curve and community exposure definitely have something to do with it.

PHP is script based while ASP.NET involves compiled code-behind codes. Before .net, the Classic ASP was quite popular among web designers in the late 90s.

Due to the popularity of blogging frame work such as WordPress and others, I think many new designers are exposed to PHP first.

When I decided which language to learn (around 3 months ago now), I went with PHP. I did take a look at ASP, as well as Ruby on Rails (which seemed way too complicated for a beginner) and Perl (which aparently is very similar to PHP, so I didn't go with it).

The reasons I ended up going with PHP, as opposed to ASP:

1. The general consensus, seems to me, is that PHP is just generally better liked among web developers. This suggested to me that it probably would be the best choice, as well as the easiest to learn, out of the bunch. I didn't use much time to actually verify this, because, well, read on...

2. As mentioned I only recently decided to learn a server-side language, but I have been making websites for more than a decade. In that time I suppose I've just developed a bad opinion of some of Microsoft's products--especially those that pertain to the internet--because of how horrible FrontPage used to be. I've always prefered coding by hand, and I caught on to the semantic-web-thing very early on, and FrontPage was an example I often used for how NOT to make websites. This opinion I think biased my decision away from ASP quite a bit. Anyway, I haven't used FrontPage in ages, so I suppose I should give it a try, and maybe it will change my mind.

3. And finally, the last reason I decided to go with PHP was because of the overwhelming amount of tutorials and resources available online.

Yeah. That was it.

For me i prefer to work with php, for the reason that you can find a lot of projects, you can easily get quick jobs when you are in need . Aside that thing, is that php is became robust in it's all free and you can find a lot of simple editors you can find to work with php. All you need is a xampp and notepad++ then it solves your coding time. But i'm very also intereasting learning with ASP.NET as i love to learn how it deals. But whatever it takes the most important is on where you are comfortable with then go for it.

I personally think that it is much easier to develop in PHP. You can get the free tools in minutes and start coding. Basically all you need is WAMP or XAMP which will install PHP, Apache and MySQL for you so you dont have to bother bout server stuff. Then you get some editor, like notepad++ and you're ready for your Hello world app. Now what do we need to start developing in .NET? 5 CDs of Visual Studio, loads of configuration, a reasonable machine..

I personally prefer PHP, I think it is more suitable for websites than .NET. My personal opinion, thank you.

Find a PHP site. View Source.

Find an ASP.NET site. View source.

There's your answer.

A general disdain for Microsoft hurts .NET a lot.

But I think hosting is the biggest issue. Linux hosting is much more common, and usually much more preferred than Windows. So we're left with PHP. But that's not bad for us, just .NET

I think it all comes down to how easy it is to start programming in PHP, which is also the downside of PHP. You don't need real programming skills to start creating a PHP based web site and the result has been some very nice PHP based apps and a whole lot of PHP based crap.

ASP .NET does require some more programming skills and real understanding of the underlying framework. (There's obviously a difference between "web developers" and programmers, as most programmers regard the PHP language as complete and utter chaos). Add to it that the tools haven't been easily accessible until now, and the hosting issue and there you have it.

And yes, ASP .NET does lack the large open source projects to build communities around.

The biggest part of this is perception.. Microsoft is evil, Microsoft web servers are slow or insecure, Microsoft is evil. The performance/insecurity may have been true years ago, but it's not as pronounced anymore (if at all). I suspect most of the people waving the PHP flag high and mighty have never even tried ASP.net in its current interation.

This longstanding perception has lead to a lot more PHP websites/articles/blogs. When a new web designer starts searching online for what techniques they should use, they're going to see much more PHP stuff and naturally be swayed in this direction.

Another big factor is the learning curve for ASP.net is much higher than it is for PHP. I've seen (and tried to teach) a number of people that simple can't grasp the flow of ASP.net websites (page life cycle, when events occur, when things are rendered in relation to others). I've seen seasoned developers struggle with this concepts from time to time too. With PHP, it's pretty simple to just paste some code in the middle of your HTML and be off and running.

The cost plays into it too... not as much now, but certainly it was one of the reasons so many people initially went the PHP route (people are inherently cheap). There are a number of free tools Microsoft offers now for developing websites/apps, but they haven't done a very good job IMO of marketing those tools. Perception is reality... when a vast majority of people still think it's not free to develope Microsoft web apps, it might as well not be.

Your are right, PHP could be easier to learn than .Net, but we cant compare them. Because one is a framework other one is script.

Thanks

ASP.NET is an abstraction on the standard web GET/POST model; the same model that most web developers already understand. Instead of dealing directly with Form data, you get to deal with controls that act as if it were a stateless environment. While this makes sense and allows for better organization in a large project, it really appeals to developers coming from a windows forms background since they can get by without even knowing how to write much of their own html.

Web developers on the other hand tend to be purists who understand how GET/POST works, and were brought into the web world on a php-like framework knowing to just post form fields and get them out of a Request object. The transition is just easier, and cheaper.

All in all, the abstractions in ASP.NET are extremely useful for large web applications, but get in the way when you start wanting to write a ton of your own clientside javascript using JQuery or such.

Don't forget that many designers use Macs, and setting up an ASP.NET testing server in the local environment is fraught with frustration, if you get it working at all. And even then it may add extra steps into your workflow ... Just one reason why PHP is more popular: it's not limited to one platform.

I think PHP is used more because it is free, and because the operating costs are lower. Besides it's not a Microsoft www.jankoatwarpspeed.com/.../...SPNET.aspxproduct.

The step up from this:

<h1>Hello World</h1>

to this:

echo '<h1>Hello World</h1>';

is tiny. However making the leap to asp.net is much more difficult. Unfortunately, a secondary outcome of this is the amount of badly written PHP out there!

Here's one thing I have yet to see mentioned -- that ASP.NET does not make it easy to create accessible and/or CSS-friendly websites, because of the crappy HTML rendered by the controls -- especially to so-called "rich" controls, like those for navigation, membership, etc.

I blogged about this a short time ago at my own site:

leedumond.com/.../

This basically leaves you with the not-very-newbie-friendly alternative of creating your own custom interface and wrangling with the underlying APIs, or living with less-than-optimal markup.

I've been saying for a long time that Microsoft needs to redesign their server controls to emit semantic, accessible, layout-table-free markup. It's way past time for it.

The advantage of PHP over ASP.Net is that it has wide range of editors both free and commercial while ASP.Net ( a closed source technology) is better developed on Microsoft based products like Visual Studio. Also most of webhost available are LAMP based which are cheaper than Windows based servers

Note, I use ASP.NET/C# and ColdFusion.
My view is that Microsoft has tailored ASP.NET for web applications, not web sites. They designed it so WinForm developers had an easy time to migrate to the web. ASP.NET (and even ColdFusion for that matter) seem to be targeted at corporations. From a permanent job point of view, Java or C# is the way to go: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Java%2C+C%23%2C+PHP&l= however, looking at the "relative" view, PHP is growing in the job market much faster than Java or C#.

If I was to start a side project that I had to fund out of pocket, I would probably go with a LAMP setup. It would just be a lower cost until I knew that the project had promise.

Two words. "Cross Platform"

The fact I prefer it is that the community is out there to help PHP as opposed to .NET.

And I use both so I have exp of both as I work with PHP cms and .NET SharePoint.

But both are good in their own little industries and markets.

Janko, You should look at ASP.NET MVC. This is on the top of ASP.NET and is OpenSource http://www.codeplex.com/aspnet. ASP.NET MVC without webcontrols and ViewState but very powerfull and give's you full control over generated html code. You must only pay for good hosting which can't be free.

I agree with Lee Dumond: ASP.NET does not make it easy to create accessible and/or CSS-friendly websites, because of the crappy HTML rendered by the controls. This is something that Microsoft seems to neglect over and over again. Although there are guys like Scott Guthrie (http://weblogs.asp.net/Scottgu/) at Microsoft who thankfully are seeing the bigger picture.

I've been working with SharePoint 2007 as a UI developer for the past 9 months, and finally threw in my towel and asked my boss to be shifted to other projects. Such was the pain of working with a locked down product with a learning curve as steep as Everest and having your hands tied when it comes to controlling the output markup.

Anyone who develops web applications (and likes standards) will also have cursed IE (pick your version) a few times. Maybe this has something to do with the choice of platform, with .NET coming from the same vendor? It's like you'd really like to trust Microsoft to deliver this time, and then the reality hits you... we'll have to wait for the next version AGAIN.

PHP or .NET? I'll use both in the end. And like Antti, look forward to ASP.NET MVC.

The damage was done with ASP classic for me. When I started learning programming I learned a handful of languages. I ended up at a crappy college that seemed to have a Microsoft fetish so my web programming classes extended my unfortunate relationship with ASP. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to, nothing lived up to 'advertising'. I found problems my professor couldn't figure out.

Around the same time I was also playing with .Net and it continued one of the things I hated the most about the whole Microsoft family cryptic errors! Well, that was that, I was using PHP at the same time with no problems at all. Now I have no reason to look. I may have to look at .Net again but at this stage I already have my choice and I don't trust the spawn of Microsoft.

As a newbie, my reasoning for choosing PHP was that it is much less daunting to undertake learning than ASP.NET. The following for PHP ensures that there's always someone around with the knowledge to help me wade through something and I haven't found that with ASP. I'll eventually try to learn ASP, but for getting my feet wet, it didn't seem to be the right choice.

Classic asp and PHP are very similar (functionally, not syntacticlly). Perhaps the generic errors you were seeing were due to having "Show Friendly HTTP Errors" check in your Internet Options?

I loath having to do PHP these days... I really like the seperation of code from design... much less spagetti code than when working w/ php and classic asp...

Though AJAX functionality is starting to add a lot of that back in

I'm a little experienced with VBScript, C# and ASP.NET. Those programming languages are realy strong I think.

And think people choose PHP because it's open source, easy and simple to learn and start with. But I think if you are a real good developer, you should choose .NET.
I read some comments above about programming on Leopard. Why? Why programming on Leopard? You realy should choose Windows. I'm not saying that I'm a big Microsoft fan but for programming I should choose Windows.

I think it would be great if there where more articles about .NET programming.

The only time I EVER use ASP.NET is at work, and that's because IT feels that a Microsoft-backed technology is more secure/reliable than PHP.

Personally, PHP is miles and miles ahead of ASP.NET, the principle reason I hate ASP.NET is due to Microsoft's disregard for common web standards with their browsers. Why should I pay a company for web technologies when that same company doesn't really care about the functionality of their other web products, plus PHP is free and seems to have a lot more relevant discussion/resources on the net.

/rant

@John

"All in all, the abstractions in ASP.NET are extremely useful for large web applications, but get in the way when you start wanting to write a ton of your own clientside javascript using JQuery or such."

Good call. I'm a .NET developer but I prefer PHP for websites because I find ASP.NET markup to be an unnecessary abstraction. I like to deal with HTML, CSS, and Javascript, pure and simple. I don't need a bunch of custom controls with their own special markup to do things.

There are probably a few other explanations:

1) Designers love macs, ASP.NET doesn't run on a mac (yes mono does, but meh)
2) Designers love good html, ASP.NET is like the exact opposite of that by default, it also puts restrictions on how you can use html. (One form, no custom ids for controls). There are some workarounds but those are not worth the trouble. ASP.NET mvc is cool and solves all these problems, but still too new.
3) MS doesn't really care about cross browser issues, there ajax controls used to have lots of bugs and they to prefer to use browser detection to solve these bugs and even render custom content for it. Might have changed now.
4) PHP is easy, its harder to write bad and unstructured code in c#/vb.net than in php. Designers are mostly not the best devs so they might go for dirty solutions.

All of these statements are just assumptions and they could all be false

Because ASP.NET only runs on Windows, essentially, and somehow some way you WILL eventually have to buy something to use it, or something attached to it and it's not compatible with anything else so now you're sucked in. Consider it another Microsoft tax.

I read some comments above about programming on Leopard. Why? Why programming on Leopard? You realy should choose Windows. I'm not saying that I'm a big Microsoft fan but for programming I should choose Windows.
@Jan..really? I guess that's why I see a drastically increasing number of developers at events with Macs, right? I've even come across a bunch of .net devs who have Macs, although they usually run Windows more than OS X.

Anyway, Windows doesn't help me at all for Mac or iPhone development, and it rather annoys me for all the other possibly crossplatform things I do (java, php, ruby, rails). I only go with Windows for .net work.

Oh, speaking of Microsoft, a while ago I got an email from an engineer there who wondered if I was interested in some job openings they had. Guess what the jobs were? Gasp, Mac programming.

And think people choose PHP because it's open source, easy and simple to learn and start with. But I think if you are a real good developer, you should choose .NET.
BTW, I have met my fair share of awful .net developers, just like awful Mac developers and awful Ruby developers and awful PHP developers. I have also met some complete geniuses. Maybe PHP makes it easier to write shitty code (I know I've fallen victim to that before ;) ), but that doesn't mean switching to asp.net automatically makes you a good programer. Far from it.

I may not be a good developer, but neither are you if you stick with .net when it's not the right tool for the job. There are obviously limitations to how far you can go with the "choose the right tool for the job" argument beaten to death by many people already, but like I mentioned previously, you can't do much with iPhone dev on Windows, and to pull a recent job of mine out, you can't go with asp.net when your client has existing non-windows hosting and refuses to move.

Hope this isn't turning into a Windows vs. Mac debate. Anyways... anyone who hates messy form controls (i.e. everyone) will probably love ASP.NET MVC - there's NOTHING of the sort. jQuery is actually getting shipped with it now, which is a great plus, and Microsoft have even committed to NOT make their own flavours of it.

As an aside: even hardcore "I will never touch the spawn of the Evil Empire"-PHP ninjas should take a look at the new client side templates from MS - They're branded ASP.NET, but since it's pure javascript, it can (and does) play well with PHP too! Stephen Walther (weblogs.asp.net/stephenwalther/default.aspx) and Bertrand Le Roy (http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/default.aspx) have some interesting material on the subject.

I agree that there are more design resources for PHP than there are for ASP.NET, but it could also be a marketing thing. MS have been making stuff for developers for, like, always. Design is not one of their traditional market, so it will take time for them to get into it, and for people to take them up. Judging by some comments above - yes, I agree that frontpage should never have seen the light of day - it will take a lot of time. Also as noted, 99% of the asp.net material is aimed at developers. It's not usable only by developers, but the docs do have that bias.

Final note: asp classic != asp.net. Please stop that... if I had feelings, they'd be hurt every time someone made that comparison :-(

Hi,
Your question's right, you're right when you says "PHP was more affordable a few years ago". But now, I meet students which are sic by PHP and love to play with ASP.Net.

I'm currently web designer and web developper under ASP.Net, but when you use this technology, it's not only a question of ASP.Net (under the life-cycle of app), it's a C# or VB.Net thing. You're wrong when you say than ASP.Net blogs are fewer than PHP Blog, because there are tons of blogs of this kind, you just don't enter on them using generic terms, often specific ASP.Net function methods of specific things. The great thing with ASP.Net is primary the Framework un IDE thing. There are tons of Framework which could be referenced under a web-app, and it's pleasant to use nicely coded codebehind.
But, I have to say than as a web designer, things become only starting from now as easy as PHP, even if the developpement process / design process under global process is not so easy to understand for all.

Cheers,

S.F.

Hello. Well, I think just about every main reason for designers to choose PHP over ASP or other languages has been said here, but just to add my own point of view:

- I know it's a prejudiced and infantile statement, but widespread hatred towards Microsoft and its past practices as a company still have a strong influence among the webdesigner crowd. So far the only MS groupies I know are the ones of our MS Platform development group ...
- Most web designers I know use a Mac, or are saving up to get one. And there are no ASP .NET Mac-oriented tools (other than text editors). And comparing Visual Studio to Textmate, for instance, is useless. .NET still remains firmly a Windows programming environment.
- Probably the most influential of them all: It's free, open source and features a massive, worldwide support community. PHP scripts and resources are a dime a dozen on the Internet. If you come across a stumbling block in PHP, chances are someone else has already found a solution to it. Think of anything that can be implemented on a web site, and it will most likely be in PHP form somewhere. .NET has quite a lot to catch up if it pretends to compete seriously with PHP in that respect.

I am a designer, not developer, but in a lot of situations I use PHP. Cause, it's really simple! And, there are a lot of open source project out there which i can use for free.
I can't wait to see your tutorials about ASP.net. I really appreciate it. Thanks.

My jobs working place is a web production house, all designer is PHP-orient .....
Why? the only reason i think, it because php is not a strong type language, no need strong REAL programming skill and logic....

Data-Type? Page Life-cycle? constructor modifier ? who care (i mean web designer)

So why i always say that php is not the first programming langauge must learn.

One more things, most web designer is ADOBE&MAC Fans....and ASP.NET is Microsoft , that so why.

It was easier for me to learn PHP. There's a lot of open source content for it as well. I don't like ASP because it's a Microsoft product and I don't like them...at all.

Much has been said already, but I thought I'd give my own 2c.. I've been using php for about a year and a half now, so I'm by no means an expert, however, I have managed to get php to do the fundamentals, and it's been relatively easy to get that extra layer of functionality and if-statements, form control, etc that isn't inherent in xhtml/css. About 2-3 months ago I started learning .Net (asp/c#), because I'm the only web designer in the dev/design team where I work. Everyone else is developers who use .Net, so it was a prudent step, and I've enjoyed the ease of use, the code abstraction (which runs well in the web standards mindset of keeping everything separate) and the ability to tie functionality to control ID's, similar to javascript/DOM scripting in some ways, so that part has been great.

For the past 3-odd years I've been immersing myself in web standards, and so obviously, the need for total control over my code is a biggie. To be honest, I'd be happy if I had limited control, but the code being generated was at least mostly semantic. VisualStudio Controls are all from the 90's! or that's how it feels. That 99% of them use tables for mark-up, and offers almost no way of editing the code to make it more compliant (that I know of - and I've googled this ALOT) is a deal-breaker for me.

It's just plain bad code. And everything that can be done with tables can be done better with xhtml/css if you have at least a cursory understanding of what you're doing as a web designer. I understand that this makes life easier for programmers, but that said - this is Microsoft, a huge company with huge resources, it's not a far stretch to think that they could have found a way to use valid xhtml/css!?

Then again, as some people have stated, we don't exactly look to (any version of) IE as a beacon of light when it comes to web development no do we..

I will continue to learn .net, as there is a need for that development and my work environment makes it a good skill to acquire, and at least I might be able to push back a little, and as much as possible use semantic markup, around the horrible component code, but when I have a choice, for now it will always be PHP. As a webdesigner, it just makes more sense (for all the reasons listed here already).

Some of the reasons I prefer PHP:

- The Development environment is painless to setup. I don't need a full IDE to create PHP sites. Any web designer can use any editor (even Notepad) and understand the code.

- PHP is a multi-paradigm language with influences from many languages like Perl, UNIX scripts etc. ASP needs BASIC skills, which is getting rarer these days.

Reasons I use PHP:

1) I program on Linux. Microsoft tools just don't work.
2) Using Linux, PHP etc, I can recreate, exactly, the server environment my ISP uses.
3) I've noticed that very few ASP programmers care much about web standards, or accessibility. Here in the UK, companies, by law, have to make their websites accessible to people with disabilities. How many table and javascript based websites can be easily navigated using a screen reader?
4) Compatibility. I want my web page to be usable no matter what web access device people use. Text only? No Javascript? IE4? Mobile phone? My sites will work, or at the very least degrade usefully. There is nothing worse that sites that only work if Javascript is enabled.
5) Cost
6) Microsoft's reputation. They butchered and bought the standards process for OOXML, writing for any version of IE is a pain, they don't care about standards, they are a convicted monopolist.

@Janko: Alex: "Using Linux, PHP etc, I can recreate, exactly, the server environment my ISP uses." - You can do it with ASP.NET as well.

I guess I could buy Windows 2008 server, MSSQL 2008 and a server to set it up on.

How much would that lot cost?

I can set my laptop up with a small virtual machine running the same Linux distribution, MySQL, Apache and PHP versions for nothing, and carry it about with me all the time.

Microsoft not an option.

Plus, I can always delve into PHP's code if I find a bug. Back when I did write Windows programs (MSVC - yuck!) I hated the hours you'd spend banging your head against a bug, only to find after much searching that it was a compiler / library bug that you then couldn't fix.

@Janko: Call me a typical ASP.NET developer Smile, but I really don't care if someone turns off JavaScript. I mean, then we should stop writing about JS and stop using it at all. Why all this JavaScript? And what if someone turns off CSS? Should we go back to the time of 2400 bauds and DOS? I don't think so. This has nothing to do with Microsoft but with JavaScript in general. Do you really make web sites/application without a line of JS code?

A typical ASP.NET developer response!

Well, a blind person would care, and people do use text only browsers. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't use Javascript, AJAX etc, just that a site should degrade gracefully, and still have some functionality if accessed by a screen reader.

e.g. Animated Javascript menus should be arranged to display in a meaningful way in a text only browser.

You should also consider how Google sees your site. Google does not use Javascript or Ajax so if you use these to dynamically fetch content for your page, Google will not index that content.

Finally, as I mentioned, in the UK you could be setting yourself up for prosecution by taking the route you suggest.

Janko: I really didn't understand the part about prosecution - for what exactly?

In the UK (and I believe in Europe (as in EU) as a whole) there are laws against discrimination against disabled people by businesses. Blind people are defined disabled, therefore all business websites should be fully accessible by blind people.

I simple terms, this means that website should be navigable by screen readers.

See here: http://tinyurl.com/n11e

(www.rnib.org.uk/.../public_legalcase.hcsp%29)

This is an area that has not yet been tested in Law in the UK, but as a responsible developer, it is a standard I feel you should be striving for. Its not as if it is difficult to do, but it does require control and knowledge of web standards.

There has been a prosecution in Australia.

Does ASP.NET give you this? I honestly don't know, I've never used it. I do know I can use PHP in this manner.

See also here: http://www.w3.org/WAI/

I think ASP.NET rocks. Lot's of functionality, plenty of samples, and tons of information allows me to find examples of almost anything I am trying to accomplish. Also, I can leverage my .NET experience for both web based and Desktop based applications.

For those out there who refuse to use .NET because "Microsoft is evil" I can only say, ha ha ha... That makes me chuckle almost as much as when I come across a Linux administrator who thinks that using a GUI is evidence that you don't know anything.

I'm living in ASP.NET's world, and enjoying every minute of it!

ASP.NET ROCKS!

For me, it depends what the client want, if solution is php based, so be it just as long as you satisfy well your clients need. They need not need to worry how you implemented it as long as it serves the purpose, besides, that's the main reason why they pay you.

Even though I'm a .Net developer, I do enjoy using powerful frameworks/CMS like Joomla! (CMS), CodeIgniter and Symfony (frameworks) that i've never seen on asp.net arena.

You're wrong.

Web design involves anything from initial concepts, brainstorming, etc. to the actual design either on paper on or a computer.

Web programming involves HTML, xHTML, CSS, PHP, Ruby, ... you name it.

Now web development is both combined.

Php might be easier to develop and there's just a lot more information about it online. It's a snowball effect. People who start developing (me also) might run into php a lot easier then asp.

I'm with Chris but I also develop using PHP. There are some cookie cutter solutions using PHP that are hard to pass up. I’m a firm believer of not reinventing the wheel, so I look at the project and then decide the platform. Most of the web designers I know and worked with want everything to be as simple as it can be. So a scripting language like PHP and ASP are on the top of their list for server side programming. The term OOP from my experience scares web designers so I believe that’s a strong reason for not moving towards asp.net.

My Arguments for PHP:
Portability
Ever try to get Microsoft SQL running under a *NIX system? Plus Mono just isn't the same.

3rd Party Products
Compared to .NET 3rd party apps for design as well as web aplications made available to those who do not wish to reinvent the wheel PHP has the edge in resources available hands down.

My Arguments for .NET:
Complete Framework
For templating you have the masterpage system built in. No need to download a separate package in order to use a templating system. This is just one example which would be the bigger one being this is gear towards designers.

Microsoft SQL:
I will leave it at that.

My arguments for both:
Simplicity
Both systems are simple to use. Once upon a time people argued PHP being easier but this has changed especially since the release of the 2005 line of products (.NET 2.0) and tools such as the Expression suite.

php is used more by lone programmers and for lighter apps like "blogs" versus .NET is better geared towards larger apps.

As a result, you find more people blogging about php since it appeals to this crowd more. .NET tends to be heavier concentrated in forums, or microsoft specific support sites.

Having a background in both, .NET is more powerful but finding a host is hard. PHP is cheap, free tools to create with, and an easier language to use. It is not easier to create a solid application with PHP though, you really need to research a framework to make sure the code is tight. .NET does a lot of the work for you and has a lot of support geared towards specific things like web services. On the other hand, the Zend Framework has cool libraries geared towards web 2.0 things, like twitter, flickr etc...

I like both languages. But I will agree, there's more of a connection between web design blog and php then .NET.

I actually went PHP when I first started because of price. That being said, today that wouldn't be an issue. I've found windows based hosting to be on par with linux vendors, there are free versions of web developer (lack of an Eclipse plugin though...), IIS7/8 are built into XP/Vista respectively once you turn the feature on, big push towards open source now (Codeplex, etc.).

Also @Alex, since your posts seemed to incorporate most of what everyone else said. Most of the issues you brought up aren't really issues today (I've yet to find a huge bug with the .Net framework, but I feel your pain on MSVC and MS's track record isn't that great on those fronts). Assuming you have Vista (big assumption, I know), you have Windows Server 2008 (same kernel for the most part) and IIS8 (although certain features aren't there depending on which version you run). Although finding a server that does 2008 is a bit more difficult for hosting, so most likely they're going to be running 2003/IIS 7. If you have XP Pro, you have IIS7. I have my laptop set up as a development server with no issues (it's also set up with a LAMP stack on a virtual machine, which is actually set up to do both ASP.Net and PHP... Go, go Mono...). But you are correct that you most likely wont have a 1 for 1 system matchup.

Also, the standards issue is well known in the US as well (it's what Target was sued over not too long ago). And while I don't care about it that much with my personal site (if you visit, you'll see what I mean), the development I do for my job needs it (we use ASP.Net with no issues in this regard). You can easily set up a completely compliant site in either ASP.Net or PHP (And I've run into an equal number of PHP programmers that don't care about standards and I've had to fix their code... Bad programmers are everywhere... I'd say I sadly fall under that category depending on the day.).

Even though it takes a bit for beginners to realize you have complete control over the output that ASP.Net spits out, so if you don't like or can't use tables/js/whatever, don't use it. Roll your own, use the innerHTML property, etc. But I'll agree that the out of the box items are rather poor when it comes to 100% standards compliant. And lastly, I do ASP.Net/C# development on Linux sometimes (using Mono, MonoDevelop, etc.). No Visual Studio, no SQL Server, nothing Microsoft. So the only one that I say is a valid point is the development setup. Chances are good you wont have a 1 to 1 matching with the server (although like I said, you can run/develop on Linux, so in those cases there is a 1 to 1 possibility).

By the way, MonoDevelop runs on OSX, so you can do C# development on OSX... Also, checking up on the latest version (I needed to update my copy of MonoDevelop anyway), it seems it now incorporates ASPNetEdit, so you can even do ASP.Net development on OSX (which I didn't know)...

Now the legitimate issue I've seen people mention (in my eyes legitimate anyway) is the one about learning curve (although I don't get the blog issue... Can someone post/send me some decent PHP blogs because I have a ton of ASP.Net ones that I follow but can't find a decent PHP one to save my life. I've seen a bunch of, for lack of a better word, crappy ones but none that are that great). You add the fact that you have to learn another language on top of ASP.Net (C# or VB.Net) and you end up with a big hurdle to get over for many people out there.

I must say the separation of code and markup isn't always automatically ensured by the Visual Studio system. It depends how conscientious your developer is. Some designers work with ASP developers who put runat=server into the table tags (making it impossible to remove the table without causing an exception), and put font tags and other design elements straight into their controls, and because the designer doesn't necessarily have access to the underlying code (it's all compiled into the bin) it's not an easy job to try and rearrange the markup, or change all the multiviews etc to repeaters and still have them work the same way.
I think if you're a designer who's concerned about web standards and clean html/xhtml and you work with an ASP developer who's not, the frustration might drive you towards php development for future projects simply because it doesn't require the same level of expertise to clean up code that already works and make it more standards-compliant.

I am intrigued by this discussion.
Mainly because I think the question is not correct and that comes mainly from the use of the term "web designer".

In my view a "web designer" is the person who is working with something like Photoshop making pretty pictures and layouts.
In the context of this post I think the term "front end developer" is maybe more fitting. The "front end developer" is the person who takes the pretty pictures from the "web designer" and turns these into bits of html code and css.
These bits of html code and css are then handed over to the "back end developer" and that person is the one who codes in PHP or ASP.NET (C#/VB.NET). He creates the components that spit out the html concocted by the "front end developer".

This, in my opinion, is the normal process. It shows that "web design" and "PHP or ASP.NET" are not done by the same person.

In real life things are slightly different. Often the three previous jobs are done by two or even one person. Changes are bigger that a PHP developer does all three then a ASP.NET developer. Probably, because ASP.NET developers are more likely to come form a corporate background.

On top of all this I think that each of the three specializations I mentioned above are so distinctly different that one should look at sources that focus on one of the three subjects as fully grasping all three is a heck of job!

Simple: open source. .NET forces you to use closed source technologies and locks you into the Microsoft IDE. This basically means that development costs more and has less choice as you *have* to use a Microsoft database and a Microsoft IDE to work. I believe there's even a clause in the EULA preventing you to utilize any open source technologies with ASP .NET.

Make no mistake, ASP .NET isn't a bad product -- it's very capable and powerful -- but being locked in and limited is the primary reason why I wouldn't wouldn't want to use it. Outside of PHP there are also other languages like Ruby and Python which are very popular in web application development -- both of which are also open like PHP and don't lock you into using one company.

I've read a lot of comments talking about that hosting cost is lower for php application, that php is portable, that php has free development tools, that microsoft is evil, and much more and i would answer to them all

> HOSTING COST
This is just a fantasy because there a lot of providers that offers low cost web hosting for asp.net, like for php. Just search throught google! And, if you search well, you will find mono based hosting too.

> PORTABILITY
Mono exists for this reason, and if you didn't like it you can use dotgnu (but i think that it isn't really stable however never tried it). Mono is a great piece of software because it's free, it's cormecially supported, it's stable and works well. The component that needs a lot of works is System.Windows.Forms classes because it need a backend for every graphic system, but you don't need them working with web.
You can set up Monodevelop, mono, xsp and mysql on your mac, or if you want you can set up you can setup monodevelop, mono, mod_mono, apache and mysql. Mono/Monodevelop projects are putting a lot of effort to drop xorg dependency!

> DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
Microsoft released express version of their tools, but if you need more powerful stuff and you didn't want to pay for visual studio you can use sharpdevelop on windows and monodevelop, that originally was a fork of sharpdevelop, on linux, mac os x and more posix compatible oses. All this stuff is free you don't need to pay!

> CODE VALIDATION
You can't look to page source code and say "asp.net generate an invalid xhtml/css source"! Look, for example, on wordpress website to see that there are invalid pages. You can use controls that build valid xhtml or you can write your own because remember that using php you need to write all this stuff alone so, if you didn't like auto-generated stuff you can write your code without using controls.

> MICROSOFT IS EVIL
Ehi, this can be! But, truly, it's a good reason to doesn't use a good framework with great languages? I think not!

> LANGUAGES SUPPORT
Do you never tried to run you php apps on .net? yeah, you can! Take a look to phalanger! You can write your php code on mono with a GREAT speed gaid and a a lot of memory reduction! You can write your code using Python (Ironpython that makes use of DRL and is fully compatible with cpython), Ruby (it depends, them are near to achive fully compatibility because them pass 71% of standard tests), F#, Boo, Nemerle, Java (take a look to ikvm), and much more languages.
You can mix assemblies and you can use ones based on DRL for silverlight (that means that you should use phalanger or ironpython and so on to do graphic stuff, with great speed without need to start to learn another language)

To close: you've really give a try to asp.net/.net/mono stuff? or you say that php is XXX better that other just for fear? If yes, give it a try!

PHP is better than .NET? If you know what programming is, you will discard php and start using java or .net

Just to add some of my opinions here. I'll not reference/reply to any of previous in particular.
I work as a .NET developer by day, but also maintain few PHP sites in my own time (by night). I don't develop on PHP, I use complete PHP applications that I customize to suite my needs. (this is very easy with PHP).

1. You don't need to buy Windows Server nor SQL Server in order to develop ASP.NET applications. How can that be true? You can simply download pre-configured Virtual Machine that is timebombed and use it for free for 30 days or more, depending on the timebomb. When it expires, you simply unzip it again. All you need is Windows XP and Virtual PC, which is free. On the other hand, Microsoft offers free Express editions for his developer tools and database server, so you can use it forever (if you like to). Microsoft also provides free Web Platform Installer that you can use to install wide set of applications needed to develop for web. Check http://www.microsoft.com/web

2. Regarding that "clause in the EULA preventing you to utilize any open source technologies with ASP .NET". - There are plenty of ASP.NET applications that are open-source, and ASP.NET can be used with various database management systems. For example, DotNetNuke portal, SUbText blog, DasBlog blog. Also check sueetie.org initiative.

3. Next version of ASP.NET (ASP.NET 4.0) is bringing various enhancements to ASP.NET server controls and better supports to standards. See www.mostlylucid.co.uk/.../...and-asp.net-4.0.aspx, haacked.com/.../future-of-aspnet.aspx

4. There are plenty of free hosting providers that provide free ASP.NET hosting. I use Quantasoft, www.qsh.eu. Also, for testing PHP hosting I use myownfreeweb.com

5. ASP.NET MVC that is currently in beta, is aimed primarily to support clean HTML and standard compliant webpages. It will be released in next 2-3 months.

our main goal should be to create standard compliant sites that are also visually compelling and usable. Both of these technologies will make this easier in the future.

Dragan

I am not a designer - I am a developer and have been making my living as such for 20 years. It kinda makes me laugh that the original question this discussion is whether the designer (graphic artist) should choose platform A or B. The designer does not get to make these decisions on a project where there is more than just them involved. They are the least qualified to make the correct decision. Of course half the time the person who does get to make it is some MBA blowhard that knows even less about technology and thinks that every application on Earth should behave like Outlook or Excel. Anyhoo - here is my $0.02 on the PHP vs dotnet debate.

I work with ASP.Net at work because I have to. On my side jobs I use PHP. As many have already mentioned the learning curve for ASP is ridiculously steep compared to PHP. At the risk of opening myself up to the derision of all .Net folks here, I will state that it took me 2 days to learn enough about PHP to be able to use it to write simple interactive data-driven web pages and after 6 months of struggling I am still trying to master the basics of ASP.Net. The biggest difference in my opinion is the documentation. The PHP documentation is simple and well organized and deeply enriched with embedded community content while the ASP.Net documentation is .... MSDN (need I say more?). I don't hate Microsoft or anything but I would never recommend .NET over PHP for writing web applications - even if you are well-trained with tons of experience. If you want to play in the .Net pool you had better be ready to spend a ton of time and money on training - sort of like Java. From what I can tell .Net was developed with the goal of taking on the Java frameworks in the Enterprise market and overlooks the fact that for every 1 huge mega-project there are 10,000 little ones where that huge amount of overhead is unneccesary. The traditional Microsoft flagship products (Office Suite, Windows, Windows Server) are all enjoying their continued success due to the fact that they were easier for the average person to use than the products that they replaced.

Andrea :

That is a very snotty comment and contributes nothing to this discussion. It also illustrates that you have no idea what you are talking about.

I am curious to know how many compilers or device drivers you have written in Java or .net ...

It's not that I hate PHP or anything, I chose not to compare PHP and ASP.NET it's because there isn't much significant competition between the two and second I hate PHP fanboys being too one-sided with PHP. How about they try .NET once in a while.

The main problem of using Microsoft languages can be said with one question: When they will deprecate it?!

Do you remember VB6? What damage have got company when VB.net has took its place?
M$ don't care at all for compatibility.

Let's talk about classic ASP: what about big projects made in ASP? Have they a great future now that Asp.net is on?

And what future have asp.net project of today? The same as always: they will be lost, because M$ has to change for earning money.

Now look at PHP: you can still use old projects. You can benefit of new stuff, but you have old stuff too. Java too. Desktop environment? Delphi still compile code of 20 years ago. Vb3/4/5/6 are dead.

Everywhere, M$ apart, the languages grow and deprecated elemets give time to change.
ONLY MICROSOFT STOP A LANGUAGE and re-start fron scratch a new one obligating you to buy close projects that costs thousands of euros and thousands od hours.

Is not possibile "coding for the ages" with M$ because they snatch out the language while your still finishing the project! )))
This is the main problem. Only AFTER THIS, came all the other problems.

So, only for punishing that arrogance, software developer should stop using microsoft!

Correction:
ONLY MICROSOFT STOP A LANGUAGE and re-start fron scratch a new one obligating you to close projects that costs thousands of euros and thousands od hours, buy a new language, and restart from scratch to write down the same project that was well debugged and working.

This is the worst thing a programmer can expect!!!!!!

Well, Well, where do I start my .03 cents...

I've read a lot of misconceptions about ASP.NET in the comments above. First off, I am a .NET developer and I have been with .NET since the beginning.

I'm going to try and not and get into the debate about PHP vs. ASP.NET, because that's not the intent of this article. I will focus mainly on ASP.NET because I dont know enough about PHP to comment.

I believe most designers have a hard time working with .NET because of the html markup that many of the ASP.NET controls generate. A