PLEASE HELP: ASP vs. PHP vs. JSP

[ErJohn]

Hi everybody: :)

I am sorry that I have placed such a long post so I may resolve my dilemma once for all. I am an entrepreneur living in the USA and trying to develop a website like autotrader.com and cars.com. I will give a brief background for you to make sense of my dilemma.

My background is marketing and I have no technical knowledge of the web programming other than what I read online and hear from experts so to speak. Most of my internet experience is as an above average user.

I have my website "SellandBuyAuto.com" built about 5 years ago using the classic asp and MsSQL on the suggestion of then the developer company. It has been idled for the last few years after a short lived marketing attempt due to financial insufficiency.

Now I am ready to market the website again after some graphic and minor program changes. As I was searching for a company to make these changes I came across differences of opinions as to what platform I should have my website reprogrammed in instead of keeping it in classic asp.

Most of the developers seem to suggest php & MySQL for mainly being free and having many developers knowing the program.

Some are suggesting jsp for the stability and the cost effectiveness for the long term.

Some are suggesting .net platform.

I have read many articles on the internet and division seems to be along these lines.

Please give me your “unbiased” opinions for the below questions so I can make informed decision.

1- Would it be advisable that I continue with classic asp and convert it down the road to the most viable platform since this option would be the least expensive for the time being?

For the argument sake let's say that the website has 1 million ads with pictures in 2 years. Would it be even possible to transfer that many ads to let's say a jsp platform. If possible, how difficult and expensive would it be compare to if I convert it now without any ads on the website?

2- If I should change the platform right at the beginning should I decide between php and jsp since these platforms seem to be the most dominant?

What do you think is the better option between these 2 or among 3 including the classic asp?

3- This question is for those who works or has worked with all 3 platforms.

Which one do you think is most stable and cost effective? If the least expensive platform for this website would cost 100 units, what would the remaining two cost. (I am trying to get a sense of the cost of the platforms relative to the other two)

Thank you so much for reading my post and trying to help. Please respond only if you feel expert in these areas.

Best wishes.

ErJohn

[TheBearMay]

You'll get a variety of opinions on this one, but here's mine based on playing in all three realms.

The easiest migration path should be from the ASP to the ASP.Net environment, and thus should be the cheapest, but does bind you to the Windows IIS environment and may therefore cost you more in hosting fees (there is a way of doing it in a Linux/Unix environment, but you'll not find it readily available). JSP's are a fairly robust industry standard way of doing business, but the expertise to do it right tends to be more expensive; typically JSPs are not run under an IIS environment (Apache Tomcat or Apache Geronimo) so you will have some additional setup (read=>costs) to do. PHP/MySQL can be run under IIS or Apache, so you won't necessarily need to change platforms, but typically PHP is not as secure or as robust as JSPs (can be, but generally are not).

So having said all of that:

#1 - If you know where you want to be, try to get there before going live. It will cost you less in aggravation and attempting to plan a later cut-over. Staying with ASP classic is my least favorite of the options presented.

#2 - The only real factor that ads play, is that they take space, and if animated, delay page execution. If you have them in the design, just plan on keeping them.

#3 - Other than the above, it is important to note that JSPs, and ASP.Net solutions will compile during the first execution (can also be precompiled) and will subsequently execute faster, while PHP, for the foreseeable future, is an interpreted language and will therefore tend to execute slightly slower.

To answer to last question:

Lower Cost -------------------------------------------Higher Cost
-----------------PHP
----------------ASP
------------------------ASP.Net
--------------------------------------------JSP
Lower Security----------------------------------------Higher Security


-HTML
------------PHP
------------ASP
-----------------------------------ASP.Net
---------------------------------------------------------JSP
Simpler Apps------------------------------------------Complex Apps

[TJ111]

TheBearyMay is mostly correct, but I'd like to expand a little bit. When you say if you have a million ads, I believe he thinks you are referring to outside advertisers, I think your referring to ads listed on your site. If thats the case, the ads will almost definitiely be stored in a database, so migrating to a different platform won't be largely difficult, SQL (the mainstream database language) is nearly identical between database types, so only a few changes to the interface would be needed.

#2 - Definitely make any changes you want to make now. Establishing a user-base and then changing up the format is difficult to do and can frustrate some of the computer-illiterate world (eBay has barely changed in 10 years). Also establishing a large user base on outdated software can be difficult in the first place.

#3 - I think this has more to do with what exactly you are trying to do then which language/technology you choose. If you want to have dynamically created content, but relatively static pages to the user, a la eBay or Myspace, then PHP or ASP.NET will probably be cheaper in the development cycle then JSP. Your main cost will depend more on how much you are trying to do than it will on what you do it with.

The "graphs" (lol) BearMay posted are best case scenario, meaning they represent each language if they are utilized to their fullest potential, which isn't always the case.

The biggest cost differential will be in the ultimate goals you are trying to accomplish, not which language you want. Think of it this way, you wouldn't buy a Ferrari to haul lumber, and you wouldn't buy a van to impress women.

[TheBearMay]

....
The "graphs" (lol) BearMay posted .... You have to work with what you have sometimes:D

[balloonal]

Erjohn

Their is no contest, pick php
1, it is more reliable
2, the code is mainly available free
3,it works much faster
4, windows servers only support asp mainly were as php can be used on linux aswell as windows servers.
5, the database the asp work with are unreliable.
In other words pick php .
P.S and it is cheaper to host
Good luck with it balloonal

[bryce4president]

They are correct. Decide on the design and get it finished before you launch. Switching up down the road will be costly. With that said...

Microsoft's IIS, like many of their products, has not proven to be stable enough for my liking. I would suggest using MySql on a Unix/Linux based system. Then you have the choice of PHP or JSP. Either one will work with the database, the question then comes down to performance.

If you want to use JSP then you will definitely want to use precompiled jsp's. No doubt about it. Doing it the other way makes no sense. JSP can be a bit of a resource hog if you don't know what you are doing. A good coder will be able to keep your response times down though.

PHP is interpreted and in some cases may take a tad bit longer to execute, but the true differences in performance wouldn't be noticable with likely compentent programmers from either platform.

PHP allows for the quicker development of pretty pages that do fancy opens and collapses. Java code is more robust since you can do things OOP. Its really up to you.

Here is my recommendation...Use MySQL on Unix/Linux and then shop around for the best price for JSP and PHP developers. You will get a good product with either one.

I would get away from Microsoft and stay away from them. Its cheaper and less headaches in the long run especially when they decide to do a major release. This is well documented in the example of 6.0 --> .Net. That was a migrane.