Most of the web developers choose the programming language to develop a website based on a few parameters. The parameters are features and functionalities of the website, scalability and flexibility plans, and the potential web traffic in the distant future. It could be surprising for many, but choosing the right programming language for an extremely high web traffic website is very crucial. Even though you must be thinking that choose the right hardware or web host plan is all it takes to handle millions of users on a website, but hardware is not the sole determinant. When we talk about 100 million users for a website, it can be anything starting from a social networking site to a news and viral website. Let us first consider the programming languages available to handle such a high traffic on a website
Different Programming Languages That Can be Used –
PHP – PHP is an automatic choice when it comes to web development. So many different frameworks are built on it such as WordPress where most of the viral blogs are made. The best example of a PHP based website with over 100 million users is Facebook. PHP is the most used web programming language in the world. Not just Facebook, Wikipedia which is one of the most accessed websites in the world is made in PHP. Some of the other examples of PHP handling website with over 100 million users are Yahoo, Flickr, Pinterest, Tumblr, and much more. These are the living example of PHP’s high traffic handling capacity.
It is important to remember to develop the website in raw PHP and not on the different frameworks of PHP available. The framework can make the website slow when the website begins to scale up to higher web traffic due to various parameters like caching, certain drawbacks of the framework, and likewise. Furthermore, you have to have your own server rather than depending on the third-party web host. You can get them to manage your server, but the hardware items must be solely dedicated to your website and enough to handle such a high traffic flawlessly.
Java – Java is another programming language that is known for its scalability feature. The use of Java in developing a website has decreased considerably with the rise of various other programming languages like Python. But Java has some of the best frameworks in the market to create a robust website in the best possible way. The best example of a website with over 100 million users that is made in Java is Amazon. In most of the high-traffic websites, Java is not the sole programming language, and it is its ability to seamlessly integrate with other programming languages that make it a favorite among a large section of webs developers.
Apart from Amazon, other popular websites made mostly on Java are LinkedIn, Facebook’s messaging platform, eBay, AliExpress, Google tools, and much more. You can even use some of the top frameworks of Java-like Spring to develop websites with future scalability up to 100 million users. Java is especially suitable for websites with complex functionalities and infrastructure.
Python –
Among the latest programming languages, Python is the best one to handle a website with 100 million users effortlessly. Python is known for its flexibility and scalability. You can add major features and functionalities as your web traffic grows and the backup from the programming language will still be intact. As a matter of fact, you can create complex websites easier on Python than on Java or PHP. You can create your own framework to use on your website.
The only drawback can be for some is that fact that most of the cheap web hosts do not support Python while they are available for PHP. But that should not be a problem when you are thinking of a website with 100 million potential users in the future. You need to have your own server anyway to support such a high volume of web traffic. Some of the popular websites based on Python are Google, YouTube, Quora, Dropbox, Instagram, Spotify, just to name a few.
Apart from these, some people might also suggest .NET and Perl, but they have multiple limitations to work with.
Final Verdict –
The first thing one needs to do is get the hardware and hosting system right to perform consistently as the web traffic increases and reaches the peak. Then you can choose the programming language based on the category and features the website has to offer. Not just that, you need to have a full infrastructure considering the future functionalities that could be included. Based on those parameters, you can choose the programming language. Python is a modern language, and it is going to be hot in the years to come. Java is getting old, but PHP has revamped and hence, it is going hand in hand with Python.
