ASP.NET vs PHP is a comparison between two free, actively developed technologies that are both capable of running a business system for many years. Neither is the better one in general. The choice comes down to what you already run, who will maintain it and where it will be hosted. Before comparing them, though, be sure which “ASP” is meant. People searching for ASP vs PHP may have Classic ASP, ASP.NET on .NET Framework or ASP.NET Core in mind, and these are three different products with very different futures.
Which ASP do you mean?
| Name | What it is | Where it stands in October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Classic ASP | Microsoft’s first web technology, released in 1996. Pages end in .asp and are almost always written in VBScript | Still runs on Windows servers as an optional component, with no development since 2000. Microsoft has deprecated VBScript and says it will be retired in a future Windows release |
| ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC | The frameworks that run on .NET Framework, on Windows only. Web Forms pages end in .aspx | .NET Framework 4.8 is supported for as long as the Windows version beneath it and gets no new features. Web Forms does not exist on modern .NET |
| ASP.NET Core | The current framework, on modern .NET. Runs on Windows or Linux | Current. .NET 10 was released in November 2025 and is supported until 14 November 2028 |
| PHP | An open source language for web applications, usually run on Linux and usually with a framework such as Laravel or Symfony, or as part of WordPress | Current. PHP 8.5 was released in November 2025 and gets security fixes until 31 December 2029 |
So the fair modern comparison is ASP.NET Core against PHP 8. Comparing Classic ASP with anything current is a different question, covered further down.
ASP.NET Core and PHP compared
Licences. Both are free and open source. The statement in older comparisons that ASP.NET costs money to use is wrong for modern .NET. Costs arise around the edges: a Windows Server licence if you host on Windows, and a SQL Server licence if you use a paid edition of that database. PHP is most often paired with MySQL, whose community edition is free. Our article on SQL Server and MySQL covers the database side.
Hosting. PHP hosting is offered by almost every hosting company, usually on Linux, and shared hosting for small sites is inexpensive. ASP.NET Core runs on Linux or Windows and is well served by the large cloud providers, Microsoft’s Azure in particular. Applications on the older .NET Framework need Windows Server.
Support dates and upgrades. Both need regular version upgrades, and the rhythm is similar.
- A new PHP version appears each November. Each has two years of active support and two more of security fixes. PHP 8.2 leaves support on 31 December 2026, PHP 8.3 a year later and PHP 8.4 on 31 December 2028. PHP 8.1 and everything older is already unsupported.
- A new .NET version also appears each November. Even-numbered versions are long-term support releases, supported for three years. .NET 8 and .NET 9 both leave support on 10 November 2026, so applications on them should be moving to .NET 10 now.
The framework on top has its own dates. Laravel, for example, releases a major version every year and provides security fixes for each for two years. Whichever you choose, budget for an upgrade every two to three years.
Hiring. Both have large pools of developers. In the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, about 28% of respondents had worked with C#, the main .NET language, in the previous year, and about 19% with PHP. As a broad pattern, PHP skills are concentrated in web agencies and e-commerce, and .NET skills in companies that build business systems.
Security. Current frameworks on both sides protect against the common attacks by default, provided the developer uses them as intended. The serious risk lies in old code written without a framework, which is typical of Classic ASP and early PHP sites: database queries assembled from whatever the user typed, and passwords stored unprotected. That is a property of the code’s age and not of the language.
Performance. Either is fast enough for a business system. When a web application is slow, the cause is usually the database queries or the design, and changing language does not fix those.
What it suits. PHP is the natural choice for content-led websites and online shops, because WordPress and many e-commerce products are written in it. ASP.NET Core is a natural choice for internal business systems in organisations that already use SQL Server, Windows and Microsoft 365. Each can do the other’s job.
If you have inherited an older site
Classic ASP. The site will keep running for now, but it almost certainly depends on VBScript, few developers are willing to work on it, and code of that age often has the security weaknesses described above. It can be made safe and kept, or moved in stages. Our Classic ASP page sets out the options.
ASP.NET Web Forms or MVC on .NET Framework. This is supported, and a stable system can stay where it is. What it cannot do is move to modern .NET without its Web Forms pages being rebuilt. See our Web Forms page for how that is done one page at a time.
Old PHP. Sites on PHP 5 or 7 are common, partly because hosting companies keep old versions available long after support ends. Moving to PHP 8 involves real code changes and usually an upgrade of the framework or content management system at the same time. Our PHP end-of-support page lists the dates and the usual route.
Should you move from one to the other?
Rarely for its own sake. Moving a working PHP system to ASP.NET Core, or the reverse, is a complete rewrite that delivers the same features in a different language.
The question is more open for a Classic ASP site, because that has to be rewritten whatever it moves to. Two things favour ASP.NET Core in that case. The existing database, usually SQL Server, can stay as it is. And Classic ASP and ASP.NET Core can run side by side on the same Windows server, so the site can be moved a section at a time instead of all at once. If the site is mainly content, a PHP content management system may be the cheaper answer.
Otherwise, choose by the people. A good supplier with a current framework matters more than the language. CodeFirst works mostly with Microsoft technology, so we are the right people for the ASP.NET side of this comparison, and we say so when a PHP specialist would serve a client better.
The first check to make
Find out exactly what you have. The address bar gives a clue: pages ending in .asp are Classic ASP, .aspx means Web Forms and .php means PHP, although modern applications of both kinds usually hide the extension. Then ask whoever maintains the site for the exact version of the language, the framework and the database, and compare each with its end-of-support date. The Microsoft ones are on our .NET end-of-support page.