[tarkin2]

PHP on its own was more of a templating system plus arbitrary code when I used it. Django and ASP.NET have ORMs and templating systems.

Lots of people love ORMs although I’ve found complex queries slow with a hefty object model system, to the point where I’d rather write parameterised sql queries than work with a ORM optimization strategy.

The templating system is nice although these days I mostly use javascript talking to json endpoints, with nearly zero need for a templating system.

Honestly when your need is: “javascript talks to endpoint and endpoint talks to database” I don’t see a greater need than python, nodejs, golang or whatever language you prefer plus a couple of libraries. Most server frameworks add more stuff you probably don’t need, unless you can’t work without an integrated ORM.

[nicoburns]

PHP has Laravel which is very competitive with Django (and Rails), and IMO quite a bit ahead of ASP.NET in terms of what it provides (although ASP.NET is far ahead of both in terms of performance).