I am currently working in PHP, so this example will be in PHP, but the question applies to multiple languages.
I am working on this project with a fiend of mine, and as
Compared to loops, a function call has its own overhead like allocating stack etc. And in most cases, loops are more understandable than their recursive counterparts.
Also, you will end up using more memory and can even run out of stack space if the difference between start and stop is high and there are too many instances of this code running simultaneously (which can happen as you get more traffic).