Scale from Within or Hire a PHP Web Development Company?

Imagine you’ve just launched your eCommerce business or mind-blowing media app. Your company’s website’s gaining traction and seeing some crazy-good conversions and customer engagement. It’s exciting and satisfying to watch your online presence surge with success.

And then Debbie Downer crashes your party. Her buzzkill warnings about the potential challenges that lie ahead are suddenly turning your joy into overwhelming despair. How are you going to handle the traffic? What will you do when your current website infrastructure and capabilities hit a wall and aren’t enough to sustain demand? Can you afford to hire a lot more people to take your website to its next level of performance, scalability, and user experience?

You start fantasizing about booting Debbie out of the room so you can get back to your celebration. You settle for politely and gracefully escorting her out of the room. But her questions still hang in the air.

Here’s the good news. While Ms. Downer’s concerns might come across as discouraging, you have the power to see every challenge as an opportunity for growth and improvement.

But what if your small tech team doesn’t have the experience or appropriate skills to get you to the next level?

With the right PHP web development company by your side, you can tackle any development obstacle head-on and turn it into an advantage. You can leverage the company’s experience and expertise to unlock your website’s full potential, implementing features and apps that elevate your business’s online presence to new heights.

What is PHP Used For in Web Development?

PHP, or Hypertext Preprocessor, is a popular server-side scripting language web developers use for dynamic and static applications to create more engaging online experiences for customers and staff. Engineers often use it to build responsive websites that perform various server-side tasks, interacting with databases, handling forms, and processing user input.

Key uses of PHP in web development include:

• Server-side scripting that seamlessly integrates with HTML.
• Database system integration, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and more.
• Powering numerous content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, Magento, and Joomla.
• Developing eCommerce websites and online stores.
• Building complex web applications with efficiency and maintainability.
• Creating RESTful APIs and web services for external applications and services.

PHP’s longevity—it debuted in 1994—has led to a vast ecosystem of frameworks, libraries, and other resources that make web development with PHP efficient and powerful.

Of course, no one language is ideal in every situation. For instance, you wouldn’t want to use PHP for enterprise-grade web applications or when your project has critical security considerations.

Can My Team Handle a PHP Web Development Project?

Smaller in-house development teams sometimes encounter limitations when creating dynamic web applications and pages, including:

1. A shortage of expertise and skillsets, particularly if the team lacks technically diverse talent. Building dynamic web applications is a complex process that requires a range of skills, including front and back-end development, user experience design, and database management. Teams without these skills might struggle to implement advanced features or tackle knotty requirements.

2. Time and resource constraints, especially if the team has multiple projects they’re working on. They could find it difficult to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines, negatively impacting the development process. Limited access to resources like software, hardware, and specialized tools can also impede a team's ability to create highly optimized and scalable solutions.

3. Lack of specialized knowledge in dynamic web development such as third-party integrations and implementing complex APIs can lead to more time spent researching and learning rather than developing.

4. Maintenance and support are ongoing tasks. An in-house team could struggle to allocate the resources and time needed for continuous updates, bug fixes, and security patches.

5. A constantly evolving landscape makes adapting and incorporating emerging technologies like new frameworks, libraries, and tools challenging, resulting in less scalable or efficient applications.

6. Without external and objective perspectives, an in-house team may lose track of industry best practices, hindering innovation and leading to solutions that are less user-friendly or less optimized.

There are positive aspects to in-house PHP development, including the advantage of familiarity with your business’s goals and processes. However, supplementing in-house capabilities with the external expertise of a PHP web development company can help overcome the above limitations.

Check out our short with 3 tips on when you should hire a software company to help your in-house team!

How Do I Know if I Should Hire a PHP Web Development Company?

When hearing these limitations, some businesses immediately decide to outsource their PHP web development. Others, though, are still on the fence, and that’s understandable.

When deciding whether to outsource PHP web development, think about things like your project’s complexity, available in-house resources, and your team’s skillset and expertise. And then ask yourself if:

• You anticipate significant growth or expansion.
• You have the financial resources to cover the expense of hiring additional staff with the right skills and expertise.
• Your team is equipped to handle the ongoing support and maintenance requirements that ensure your project’s longevity and reliability.

Discussing your concerns and questions with one or more PHP development companies can also help you weigh the benefits against the associated costs of hiring an outsource partner.

Should I Outsource PHP Web Development?

As a third-party provider of software, security, and advisory solutions, we’re admittedly biased about the advantages of outsourcing PHP web development. That said, we also know that there are instances when keeping development in-house is preferable and makes more sense. For example, if you have a unique, highly specialized project that requires close collaboration with other internal teams or if you have concerns about data security and confidentiality, in-house development might be best.

Whether you should outsource PHP web development generally comes down to your specific requirements, budget, timeline, and available resources. When making a decision, it can help to objectively evaluate your in-house team’s expertise and capacity, weigh the costs and benefits of outsourcing, and assess whether outsourcing will better meet your project goals.

How Can Zibtek Help Scale My Development Team?

To sum up, outsourcing your PHP web development gives you:

1. Access to skilled developers.

2. Flexibility in resource allocation.

3. Faster project delivery.

4. Access to industry best practices.

5. The opportunity to offload some or all development tasks so your team can concentrate on higher-level activities.

6. Streamlined project management.

7. Ongoing support and maintenance.

Because we’ve perfected the right balance of US engineering expertise and off-shore labor, we’re able to deliver top-notch development services at an incredible rate, offering our clients the absolute pinnacle of value in the software development sphere.

So, don't let the Debbie Downers of the world dampen your entrepreneurial spirits. Zibtek can help you say goodbye to limitations and hello to future-proof web solutions that propel your business forward.

Schedule a meeting with us today to learn more.