PHP is a powerful cross platform server side scripting language. It is a full featured programming language capable of managing huge database driven online environments. Using PHP you can query databases, create dynamic images, create e-commerce websites, manage security for online transactions, read & write files on the server, talk to remote servers - the possibilities are endless. MySQL is a small, compact database server ideal for stand-alone and enterprise applications. The PHP-MySQL combination is also cross-platform.

Like Javascript, php employs a syntax similar to C, and provides strong support for pattern matching and database access. Extension for a communicating with other network resources, such as mail and directory servers, is also available

PHP is an open source product. As with other open source products, such as Linux operating system and Apache HTTP server, PHP is not a commercial product. It is, instead, the result of contributions from a community of interested developers. Freely contributing to,and supporting its code base. One important result of its open source nature is that PHP is now available on a large number of platforms. It is compatible with Windows NT as well as several UNIX operating systems, and with a number of HTTP servers such as Apache, Microsoft’s IIS, and Netscape Enterprise server.

Open source has brought a lot more than Unux to the computing world. It has also given us Linux, PHP and MySQL. PHP and MySQL are the world's best combination for creating database-driven websites.