Is anyone here prefers Node over PHP for Backend?
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Oldest comments (71)
Websockets my love🙂
Is PHP considered as a programming language, compared to Node.js?
Yes, PHP is considered as a programming language. NodeJS too.
As far as I understand, Node isn't a programming language, JavaScript is. Node is a runtime environment that lets you execute JavaScript outside of the browser.
Exactly. A fair comparison would be node vs roadrunner for php. Even fpm isn't really a proper comparison since it only connects prerouted requests for php scripts with the php interpreter.
The mess is that there are technically 2 php interpreters, php cli and the one tied to fpm, both configurable separately.
It is more about your personal experience and feeling.
Both. I am a PHP developer and I decided to start a Quasar + Firebase project for learning purposes. It is already being a year me working on this project and now I deep stuck with decision how to proceed. I need now to add job queues and proper logging. Probably it is also better to have own database aside.
For now solo, but it should be scalable.
If you know how to do this on PHP, I will go Node just for the sake of learning.
Dockerize your environments and use any of the many queueing systems to manage your processes. E.g. RabbitMQ. I'd stick with php, it has its quirks but I love it over all other languages personally.
I prefer PHP.
Symfony or Laravel?
Vanilla MVC.
No frameworks?
No frameworks - some thin boilerplates only. PDO for databases, XSLT for templates. Model 55 lines, router 10 lines. Without any HTML inside.
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime and PHP is language !! PHP vs Javascript or you can compare Nodejs vs Zend Engine. be productive and avoid comparing languages .. all languages are good ...
My question is not about language, but about Server-Side Environment. How would you let your server handle request?
P.S. Should I put PHP-FPM in original question instead? :D
You should really make your question clear as to the scope of the expected answer.
You can mention fpm, sure, but fpm is simply the interpreting engine.
As to how to let the server handle requests, it's more about what features you want and whether you have external constraints from other systems in your stack.
Theoretically both node and fpm benefit from a reverse proxy or lb in front of them. The downside of fpm is that it needs a compatible web server as opposed to node.
Fpm only interprets php code, so the proxy in front needs to route those requests for php files and be able to serve non+php directly, unless you want to write a generic we server in PHP (not efficient). Therefore php works with nginx or lighttpd unless you go modphp and use apache with the embedded module (where prefork raises questions on performance VS the multithreaded nature of nginx)
Node has no such constraints. It can work with plain proxies like haproxy or even serve requests straight up (but you would need to pay attention to stuff like security).
In a containerized environment, php shows some limitations in that nginx +fpm is a bit of a pain to setup efficiently (think kubernetes) and you end up using roughly 3 lb's in front of fpm, nevermind the inherent networking overhead (usually I go with apache there)
Node is easier from this perspective, but switching ecosystems coming from php is not that easy.
Myself I ended up going with Roadrunner for php, as it is wrapped in a very efficient golang server + enforces psr compliant requestd/responses
If you would start a new project, what would you make as your backend? Node or PHP? Express or Laravel? Let's say you write a REST API, what stack would you use and why?
I would make my decision based on the goal. For example I have projects that leave a lot of room for learning. I would go with express in this case just to improve my knowledge, but I would also use it in cases where node packages may be superior to php (in case of grpc for example)
Otherwise I would use php but I would not use any of the major frameworks (I have a performance comparison of returning 100k json encoded rows from two related tables, Laravel is the worst performer of all).
I would favor a microservices framework like Swoole if I weren't inclined to make a monolithic API. Otherwise I would use a microframework like Symlex but nowadays I sort of favor a custom solution built around a fast router (there's nikic but also the phpleague router). For an API there aren't many requirements: fast router with Middleware support, DI container (phpdi is excellent) and maybe doctrine for a strong orm with several layers of caching. Of course, logging and some metrics/observability would be nice.
I have a sort of personal 'framework' that rivals symfony 5 in performance but it still lags behind the likes of ubiquity 2 and symlex.
But my main requirement from a php stack would be to handle routing for psr requests and responses and neither symfony nor laravel do that.
This comes from the fact that nowadays I consider it mandatory for a php api to be deployable with roadrunner (symlex is built for roadrunner compatibility), in this case php blows node/express out of the water and can close in on rust performance for example.
I wouldn't use either for grpc... If you're interested in container orchestration like kubernetes, I might use node for it. You can't use grpc+cluster modules together iirc.
Server Side PHP is the way to go.
dev.to/brewer1_jane/why-php-is-the...
Node if you want to do cloud work.
How would you implement state machines in Node? I am looking for a solid alternative to Symfony Workfow Component.
Depends on what you are trying to do... I use refund patterns.
Neither or it depends.
I prefer Php at backend because it easy for beginners...
But NodeJs is superb when it come to backend...
I prefer PHP and Laravel as backend, and also a JS framework as fronted like VUE. Laravel is really nice, easy, handy and secure to develop a mid range project. I have to say, I love it!
Never again with the php.
I use php (laravel) mostly for my backend logics. Although Node.js is now taking over
Node all the way.
JavaScript syntax is much nicer than PHP, also more concise, and actually OO. JavaScript doesn't need special handling of UTF-8, unlike PHP, where my scripts very much like to save mumble-jumble into the database instead of the actual characters.
Node also has a proper package system, which lack of has bitten my ass many times in PHP (when the official docs tell to you composer install a package but you actually can't because a third dependency of both of them has a version mismatch... Looking at you, Lumen), but never in Node, where each package can require its own version of anything and it just won't clash.
TypeScript.
Also, native JSON support is nice when working with JSON based REST APIs or services in general.
Can you please share some nice projects in Node? Do you consider this github.com/HugoDF/express-bull-es6 as a good practice?
I am lacking some abstraction and organization of the code that PHP has.
You can take a look at Example Node (Express + Mongoose) codebase containing real world examples.
What I meant specifically by syntax is, e.g.,
$for variables,{ key: value }vs[ 'key' => value ],(args) => retValvsfunction (args) use (vars) { return retVal; }What abstractions and organization of code do you mean?
Composer works great and you can 100% specify versions. Also, composer is the only one which do you prefer npm, bower, yarn... whatever comes next.
Syntax is an opinion. I mean don't get me wrong php could have helped itself with naming and parameter ordering consistency. Some people like ruby and I know cold fusion evangelist.
PHP has type hinting or you could move to Java or .net if you wany types and "actual oop/d".
Json is pretty straightforward with json_encode/json_decode. Where a lot of other languages you need an entire library to make that work on complex objects (no not js).
As for the question. I would say js/node are hot to trot right now. There are a lot of companies willing to pay top dollar for that skill set.
If you are starting a company though php can get all the work done for a fraction of the cost. Php developer (who creat the same systems) are very underpaid.
Also, realize whatever is best right now won't be in 10 years and you should always be evolving your skillset.
Also realize that best is very tricky and depends a lot on what you are doing.
My personal experience is Java, python,php and js. But I've gotten stuff done in ruby, cold fusion and .net.
Server wise node for js seems pretty standard. PHP has Apache mod-php which is well documented. If you are making an API I think php-fpm would be a good alternative although I usually run into issues when it comes to returning static content like images or css files. Still have not found a good solution for that without some hacky methods.
when people say simple sh*t like this i can't do nothing but wonder what the engineers who made complex frameworks such Symfony and ZEND would say lol
no. still php
The question is not clear since you comparing two different things. Assuming you comparing PHP and Javascript. I prefer working with Javascript just because I think it's best to write in one language because in most cases you end up writing Javascript anyway. Php itself is still a solid language!!!
Let's say you need to write a newsletter system that would send email to 1k users weekly. Would you write this script in Javascript or PHP? Would you use any framework for that? What would your cronjob look like?
I do something like that from firebase using AWS-SES with a nodejs cloud function (like lamda in AWS). I don't use the cloud scheduler for it, but that certainly could be done.
Similar logic lives in other functions that use pubsub for transactional emails and alerts.
The farther I can get away from email tasks and servers, the better. 1,000 emails is $0.10.
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