Is Node.js killing PHP?

PHP is used a lot by beginner coders, so a large amount of the code available is not optimal :-) But the fantastic community and the dedicated people that drive it forward have made it a more than serious competitor to more traditional server-side languages like Java. So it became a direct competitor to them, companies played the lower entry barrier card, and won money fast.

Node.js on the other hand, has a much higher entry level, and the abundance of tools available does not make it easy on people. Simply put, in order to start development, one does not start with node.js. This to me makes node.js more a direct competitor to the other server-side languages, and not to PHP directly.

PHP is used by 42% of the top million websites, for this reason, PHP will stay for a very long time: Framework technologies Web Usage Statistics

However, many trends show that PHP is declining.

First of all, the previous link shows that PHP is used by 42% of the top million websites but by “only” 27% of the top 10k.

Second, even if there are many exceptions (Slack, for instance), startups are less likely to adopt PHP, according to AngelList data: “The likelihood that PHP is being used is strongly anti-correlated with company quality.” ( Which Technologies Do Startups Use? An Exploration of AngelList Data )

So “who’s killing PHP?”. According to Stack Overflow 2016 Survey, Node.js is one of the main contenders of PHP:

JavaScript is the most commonly used programming language on earth. Even Back-End developers are more likely to use it than any other language.

More people use JavaScript than use any other programming language. PHP appears to be falling out of favor as Node and Angular emerge.

Developers who don’t currently develop with Android, Node and Angular want to do so.

Newer web-development technologies like React, Node.js, and AngularJS are growing in use.

If you look at Stack Overflow tag trends you can see that PHP is slowly declining while Node.js is growing fast.

Another interesting trend is that some companies which historically used PHP decided to develop some new services in Node.js (not the whole website, the backend is still in PHP):

• WordPress switched its administration interface (only) from PHP to Node.js,
• The Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart partly switched from PHP to Node.js

For all these reasons, employers are more and more looking for Node.js developers and less and less for PHP developers, according to Indeed Job Trends.

However, PHP 7 was released in December 2015. And PHP 7 is way faster than PHP 5. One note on the PHP future: Features of PHP7 are very impressed. What to Expect When You're Expecting: PHP 7, Part 1 Not only it is on a great way to a "serious" language, but the performance metrics are truly awesome.

It will be interesting to look at Stack Overflow and Indeed in 2017 to see whether PHP 7 can reverse the trend or not and if Node.js can continue to rise at this pace.