Ruby on Rails vs PHP

Updated June 12, 2023

Differences Between Ruby on Rails vs PHP

Ruby is an object-oriented scripting language. Ruby is an interpreted programming language that developers use to develop web applications at a high pace. Because of its fairly simple syntax, Ruby is simpler to read and write. Ruby is open-source, free of cost, and easily available. It can support multiple platforms like Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac. PHP is an open-source programming language for web development. It supports platforms Unix-like and Windows. PHP filename has extensions like .php, .php3, .php4, .php5, .php7, .phps. PHP is alternatively known as PHP: Hypertext Pre-processor. The syntax of PHP is similar to the C language.

Ruby

• The initial implementation of Ruby was written in the C programming language. Ruby has extensions of a file as ‘rb.’ Ruby has the features of other scripting languages like Perl, Small Talk, and Python. Mainly it has a similar syntax to Perl and C language.
• Ruby strikes an excellent balance between power and simplicity, enabling the creation of easily maintainable and scalable programs. Ruby facilitates the extension through numerous libraries specifically designed for this purpose, emphasizing testing significantly.
• Some features that Ruby has evolved are dynamic type and duck typing, flexible syntax, inheritance, garbage collection, exception handling, overloading, lexical closures, iterators, built-in support, and variable scope.
• The Rails framework brought significant importance to Ruby in 2005 for web development. Ruby on Rails can be used to develop interface scripts. Ruby on Rails can be written with HTML language in scripts. Connecting Ruby on Rails to a database is straightforward, and developers can leverage built-in functions to construct Ruby scripts.

PHP

• Rasmus Lerdorf and Zend Technologies created and developed PHP, releasing it in 1995. The last stable release was 7.2.5 in 2018. It was written in C and C++ language. You can embed PHP code within HTML and utilize it as a server-side scripting language.
• It makes the applications more dynamic and simple. It can easily be connected to a database like Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, etc. PHP has used the PHP interpreter to process the code. You can execute Ruby using command-line tools and GUI applications.
• PHP is very simple, efficient, secure, and flexible. PHP has extensive usage in small web applications and enjoys greater popularity than other languages.
• The PHP mascot was a blue elephant featuring the PHP logo. Oops, a concept introduced in PHP 3 and PHP 4 makes the programming easier.

Head-to-Head Comparison Between Ruby on Rails vs PHP(Infographics)

Below is the Top 7 comparison between Ruby and PHP:

Key Differences Between Ruby on Rails vs PHP

Below are the differences between Ruby and PHP:

1. Ruby does not provide different syntax to access the methods, variables, and properties. PHP provides different syntaxes to access the same.
2. In Ruby, statement terminators can serve as newline terminators. It means a character in the following line. A semicolon serves as the statement terminator in PHP.
3. In Ruby, to concatenate two strings ‘. (dot)’ is used. In PHP, to concatenate, the ‘+’ sign is used.
4. Ruby does not support integer data types. PHP supports 32 and 64-bit integer data types.
5. Ruby has strongly typed typing. PHP has weak typing.
6. Ruby is expressive and readable. PHP is robust and simple
7. Ruby uses the ‘END’ word to finish the code blocks. In PHP, code blocks are concluded by using curly brackets {}.
8. Ruby uses different syntaxes to find a string length. In Ruby, you can write it as ‘string.length,’ whereas in PHP, you write it as ‘strlen($string).’
9. Ruby applications are expensive and complex to host and a very time-consuming process. PHP applications are far cheaper and take less time.
10. Ruby has supported records and complex numbers. But PHP does not keep complex numbers and records.
11. Ruby syntax is easier to understand and grasp. PHP syntax is complex as its standard library.

Ruby on Rails vs PHP Comparison Table

Below is the list of points that describe the comparison Between Ruby and PHP:

BASIS FOR COMPARISON	Ruby	PHP
Programmed	Ruby was initially implemented in C programming language.	PHP was programmed in C and C++ programming languages.
Framework	Ruby is a programming language that later saw the development of the Rails framework.	PHP is a Programming language.
Application	Developers use Ruby on Rails as a framework for developing both desktop applications and web applications.	PHP has found wide usage primarily in the development of web applications.
Development	In Ruby, development & deployment is difficult compared to PHP.	In PHP, development and deployment are easy.
Functions	Ruby has to load libraries to get the corresponding function.	PHP has inbuilt functions, which make things easier.
Syntax	Ruby’s syntax is similar to Perl and Python.	PHP syntax is similar to Perl and C language.
Performance	Ruby applications are slower than PHP.	PHP applications give better performance than Ruby.

Conclusion

Both Ruby on Rails and PHP serve as general-purpose programming languages. These are open-source, free, and readily available for the platforms. Developers commonly utilize Ruby and PHP as dynamically typed languages for web development applications, specifically server-side scripting languages. Both Ruby and PHP possess the ability to scale.

PHP is stronger in providing consistency, uniform variable syntax, sensitive context, and abstract syntax, making the language consistent despite problems with standard library issues. PHP is simple, easier to learn, and most widely used in the market. There is a lot of online support for PHP, including many template engines, developers, editors, and tools.

Ruby is more powerful than PHP. It has been popular with the Rails framework, which makes the language more versatile and adaptable. Ruby is difficult to learn as compared to PHP. Ruby has an excellent online community to provide support and becoming popular with developers.

Each language has its strong areas. While building an application, developers must take care of many things, including the complex task of selecting an appropriate language for development. The selection process considers the pros and cons of the language, giving primary concerns to performance, scalability, cost, support, and maintainability.

Recommended Articles

This has been a helpful guide to the Differences Between Ruby and PHP. Here we discuss head-to-head comparison, key differences, infographics, and a comparison table. You may also look at the following articles to learn more –

1. Ruby vs Ruby On Rails
2. Ruby vs Python
3. Rails vs PHP
4. JavaScript vs Ruby