16th Jun '22
PHP is a server-side software language, which means it sits on the web server. In contrast to Client-side languages such as Javascript or CSS, a server-side language often takes care of the heavy-lifting data needs of your site, such as interacting with a database, external API Integrations, data-processing or resource generation (such as PDFs, emails etc.)
PHP has been around since 1994, and is the language of choice to power some of the world's most used websites, such as Facebook, Wikipedia and Zoom.
According to w3techs, PHP powers more than three-quarters of all websites that require server-side capabilities, so PHP development is a big deal!
The ultimate aim of PHP development is to automate many of the tasks that companies have traditionally needed to perform manually. This leads to an increase in efficiency, allowing the reallocation of company resources to other important areas, such as Customer Service or R&D.
Some tasks that can be automated with PHP Development:
These are just a small subset of the possibilities. Each business has their own bespoke needs, and in 99% of cases PHP offers a valuable solution.
Wordpress is a widely used Content Management System (CMS) built using PHP. It's easy to setup, and has available a vast array of ready-made plugins to perform many of the tasks discussed in this blog post. It's a great choice for presentational websites, offering comprehensive content-editing capabilities for businesses.
Wordpress is highly-customisable; bespoke themes and plugins can be developed according to the Wordpress formula.
Given the out-of-the-box functionality available with Wordpress, you might wonder why anyone wouldn't use it? But there are some potential downsides to using Wordpress...
Using large numbers of Wordpress plugins can lead to slow applications, which severely negatively impacts user-experience and search engine optimisation.
Secondly, large amounts of Wordpress customisation can become overly-complicated and much more effectively managed within a code-framework, such as Symfony or Laravel.
These frameworks require more technical know-how to build and maintain, but are completely customisable and flexible, give faster processing times and structure code in a way that can be successfully maintained for years to come, if they're used correctly.
The downside of using these frameworks is that they may involve more set-up costs, due to the smaller amount of out-of-the-box capability when compared with Wordpress, and due to the required technical expertise.
Whatever your business need, we'll be able to offer a reliable solution at a reasonable cost. With over 15 years in the business, we've successfully helped clients ranging in size from multi-nationals down to individuals. Every project is important to us, and our greatest joy is in listening carefully to the client and designing and engineering a solution that meets theit needs.