However, both of them are necessary if you want to create a successful and, most importantly, functional website. HTML will gladly help you build the structure of your website, and PHP will turn it dynamic and feature-rich.

The reality is that a web server can be configured to recognize any file you want as the default for that site. That being the case, it's still a good idea to stick with index. html or index. htm because it is immediately recognized on most servers without any additional configuration needed.

The index. php file for a template contains a mixture of code that will be delivered as it is, and PHP code that will be modified before it is delivered. The code will be familiar to anyone who has designed a simple HTML web page.

Developers use “index” to denote the “main” or “home” page of a website or an app. In a standard website the index file is usually the page that your domain url points to (for example: www.example.com). the . php, . html, are the file extensions, denoting which language the code is using.