Hello,

If you would’ve asked this question around two-three years ago, I would’ve said PHP. But now scenario has completely changed. There is huge growth of SPAs (Single Paged Application) which is purely based on JS (JavaScript). So, let’s dive into more details.

PHP:

PHP is old awesome and easy to code language. Almost 75% of websites on internet you visit uses PHP somewhere. In a previous answer the person has given more details about PHP. You can use this to develop any kind of websites, from WordPress site to landing pages to even Facebook like sites. You’ll be glad to know that FB is purely based on PHP. It is like C, an old and gold language.  To have a fully complete feature rich website in PHP you need to build on LAMP or LEMP stack. L is for Linux, A is for Apache, M is for MySQL, P is for PHP and E is for Nginx (pronounced as Enginx). So here you see, you’ll have to focus on four different platforms and languages.

JavaScript:

In my honest opinion, JS is a game changer in web-development field. Since it’s release, the popularity of the  language has been rising at a very fast rate. Why? Because of the flexibility. If you are solely making website based on HTML, CSS then JS can be used to add a lot of interactivity. The popularity of JS is also because it has a lot of libraries and framework in the market. If you want to develop feature riched website and only language you know is JS, then it is possible. Stacks like MERN, MEAN and MEVN are there in market. Read the documentation and start right now. M is for MongoDB, E is for Express, R is for React, A is for Angular, V is for Vue and N is for Node. Unlike LAMP and LEMP, JS stacks are only based on JS so you don’t need to learn any other language in depth. Just a basic will do.

At the end choice is yours. PHP is better in some terms and JS in some terms. But with my experience I’ll say first start with HTML>CSS>Vanilla JS> (MERN/MEAN).

Thanks!