PHP is a scripting language just like ASP. However, unlike ASP which can run in a stable manner only on the Windows operating system, PHP can run on both Windows and Linux. Originally, PHP stood for "Personal Home Page", but with the release of version 3.0 it came to be known as "Hypertext Preprocessor". This necessitated the omission of the first "P", however it was retained since it was part of the original acronym. PHP can support a variety of database types including MySQL and PostgreSQL which are the two most common ones offered by many web hosting companies. Over the past decade, PHP has become extremely popular since the Linux-based web hosting platform on which it is offered by most companies is not only cheap but also very rugged.

PHP can help web developers and programmers build a dynamic website, i.e. a site whose pages communicate with a database residing on the server in order to present relevant content to the end-user. You must've seen plenty of websites with a search option. The user selects one or more of a number of options either by checking them or by selecting them from a drop-down menu and optionally enters some keywords. Subsequently, the "Search" button is pressed and the results relevant to the user's query are returned within seconds. This can easily be implemented by means of PHP, even though other scripting languages can also do the job. Although PHP contains many new features specific to this scripting language, a large portion of its syntax has been borrowed from C, Java and Perl.

The best thing about PHP is that it can easily be incorporated into an existing webpage. All you need to do is change the extension of the webpage to ".php". This page can now contain the normal HTML as well as any PHP code that the programmer wants to add. Also, similar to MySQL, PHP is open source and can therefore be downloaded and used for free. This allows affordable web hosting companies to offer PHP along with MySQL at no additional cost to their clients. The number of MySQL databases offered is however variable, with some companies offering only a few databases and charging the customer as and when more are required, while others offering unlimited databases.

PHP is also very easy to learn and does not present any problem to programmers familiar with the other major programming languages. The latest version of PHP is version 5.0 which is cross compatible with the old versions. However it includes many new features to simplify coding. It also includes a new object-oriented programming model based on the Zend 2.0 engine as well as a new extension for improved MySQL support. If you're planning to use the PHP scripting language on your new or existing website, then you can rest assured that you have made a very wise decision. All of the affordable hosting companies listed above offer PHP functionality with many of them offering unlimited MySQL databases as well. Best of luck in your search for the right PHP hosting company!