Introduction
PHP is a flexible, versatile, and free scripting language that could offer a scalable and robust tool for eCommerce websites development. PHP, along with all its frameworks, are highly used for developing eCommerce websites since it’s compatible with almost all software and could build complex apps with less effort and time. Furthermore, the frameworks provide a host of services that ease the process of web designing and development.
Why PHP?
PHP means personal home page when it was first designed in 1994. Later, the name became PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. A lot of business organizations today prefer using PHP for developing eCommerce stores. Here’s why.
1. Cost Effectiveness
PHP is open-source, thus it consistently saves on subscription expenses. Moreover, it is a standard and widely used language, thus, there is no need to look far and spend a lot on developers. The programming language could be run easily on most platforms, including Linux, Microsoft, and MacOS distributions and even UNIX.
PHP supports all major servers as well, which include Microsoft IIS and Apache. It also incorporates other technologies, such as Mongo dB that enables it to operate with Memcache, Big Data, as well as other tools.
2. Scalability
When it comes to eCommerce solutions, speed is not the only issue. Scalability is necessary for eCommerce as well. PHP has the right tools if developers build a good architecture. Using the cloud infrastructure to have a NoSQL is one way to scale the framework. The approach helps in addressing security concerns.
3. Documentation and Support
Because of its age and popularity, PHP has gathered a huge and helpful development community. Experts always help each other overcome problems, boost code, or simply integrate with other technologies. An extensive PHP manual is available online with complete information and instructions regarding migration to a version to another.
4. Various available frameworks
Some of the existing PHP frameworks include CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Laravel, Symphony, Speed, PHPixie, Phalcon, and Yii among others. Each of them offers numerous modules and tools with strengths and weaknesses as well as an entire community. The PHP frameworks are wonderful since they offer a chance to recycle code.
The frameworks, furthermore, come with built-in functions to connect to a database, handle calendars, work with emails and even debugging.
5. Faster
One of the main attributes of PHP is speed ever since. It has become a trademark with PHP 7. A study of Zend Technologies recently shows that a CMS that run on PHP is two times faster than one that runs on PHP 5.6.
The improvements are available for other eCommerce platforms as well, such as Magento. The new version offers thirty percent less memory consumption. The catalogue requests are improved by 112 percent, thus decreasing the loading time significantly.
6. Analytics Options
PHP could be used in connecting an analytics service to a website. Google Analytics is the most popular. However, if you’re using a dedicated customer relationship management system, integration is possible as well.
There are specialized analytics and sales tools integrated in off-the-shelf solutions for eCommerce. Knowledge of the most and least popular products could help in better business decision making.
Conclusion
PHP’s flexibility, cost-efficiency, and speed make it one the best solutions when it comes to building an eCommerce website. Organizations that look for a secure solution that could be scaled as they grow should look no further than PHP.