I've been playing around with koding, which I believe offers a similar toolset.
That said, their documentation is lacking, and broken links abound. I hope they get their act together soon, or they are doomed as the on boarding and troubleshooting experience is terrible.
OP here. Only the backend is written in PHP (it is very simple PHP) and that may change (probably Python, maybe Node.js). It's only a small part of the code, most of the code is javascript that runs in the browser. Initially, I am working on Apache and PHP because a lot of what I work on is Wordpress, but Nginx certainly supports PHP as well. Note that it doesn't require your code to be written in PHP, only that your server has the correct modules installed. If you use phpmyadmin you have already pretty much installed everything needed.
I wasn't meaning to criticise the use of PHP at all.
But creating some sort of bundle with a portable PHP and server, just a zipped folder or something, would hugely reduce the barrier to entry, and reassure people like me who shy away from part of the tech stack.
It sounds like it's written in PHP, so dependency isn't likely to go away, but it specifically says it should work fine with a server other than apache.
As for your specific issues, I find it hard to follow your complaint when it comes to docs. Both php and apache httpd projects have extensive, easy to follow documentation.
> PHP isn't necessarily bad. But bad experiences mean I hate it.
It sounds like those experiences were the fault of the developers not some intrinsic issue with the language itself. (i.e. its not like say "i hate flash because its a security shit-fueled nightmare").
Either way, the system currently has an "install script" and aims to develop deb/rpm/etc packages to achieve the same result, which seems like it's what you want.