Price Compared to ASP, PHP installations are absolutely cheaper to install. PHP perfectly runs on Linux (which is a free OS) and programmers use MySQL .(which also comes FREE)ASP runs on the IIS Server (Internet Information Server) which requires Windows N.T/2000/2003 Servers or better. Aside from that ASP mostly uses MS-SQL Server as the back end which is really expensiveThe Bottomline: PHP is CheaperCross Platform compatibility PHP programs run on a wider variety of OS Unix, Linux, Solaris and Window's.ASP on the other hand only works flawlessly with Windows.Bottomline: PHP tops in terms of versatility.SecurityThe biggest disadvantage with PHP and any open source software must be the fact that companies do not want it because they do not trust PHP.



This is because in PHP, common tasks like ftp, encrypt passwords in MD5, or send email from a web page all are built in hidden code, and as PHP is Open source there is a lot

of free code available for PHP.

Unlike PHP there is no hidden code with ASP. If you need to upload files, then you would need a third party component like ASP upload, also if you need to

send mail you need another component and so on.

Bottomline: ASP is more Secure than PHP.

Conclusion:

Both have their Pros and Cons.

A PHP accelerator is an extension created to improve the performance of software applications written using the PHP programming language. Here is a list of PHP accelerators:

1. Alternative PHP Cache – a free and open framework used for caching and optimizing PHP intermediate code. The latest stable version is 3.0.18. It works with all PHP versions including PHP5.2.

2. eAccelerator – Originally part of the Turck MMCache project, eAccelerator used to have a PHP encoder and loader but was removed after December 2006. Its latest stable version is 0.9.5.3 and it supports PHP4 and all PHP5 releases including 5.2.

3. Xcache – is a powerful and stable PHP opcode cacher which can run on production servers under high load. It has been also tested on linux and supports ThreadSafe/Windows. Its latest stable version is 1.2.2 and supports PHP_5_1 PHP_5_2 HEAD (6.x)

4. Zend Optimizer - is a closed source solution which is purely a code optimizer with no code caching feature. This makes Zend Optimizer different from other PHP accelerators. Also, Zend Optimizer is very useful in running some types of protected scripts. However, one major setback is that the time taken to optimize scripts may exceed the performance gains, hence, resulting to an overall slowdown.

5. Zend Platform - originally Zend Cache and then Zend Accelerator, this commercial product was, at first, sold for $995.00 and $1495.00 US dollars per server.

6. ionCube PHP Accelerator (PHPA)– is claimed to be the first freely available PHP performance solution to rival the peformance of the commercial Zend Cache product. It was launched in 2001 and was intended to maximize the performance potential of PHP. However, PHPA is now discontinued, although there is an announcement regarding the development of a more advanced replacement.

7. Turck MMCache – though discontinued, Turck MMCache is still widely used today.