[skrebbel]

By the way you phrase that question, you're dismissing that single key feature that PHP _already has_ that cannot be had at other established languages.

I know of no other language that lets you deploy a web app by dragging some files from the left to the right in FileZilla. No setup, No vendor lock in, no nothing. It just works.

Cross-cloud serverless frameworks that wrap AWS lambda + competitors get you somewhat close in other languages, but you still have a lot more setup to go through, and lot fewer hosting providers to choose from.

PHP's deployment and execution models really set it apart.

[ragnese]

You cannot deploy a PHP app by just plopping a file on an unconfigured server.

Deployment is not that simple.

Or, if it is, then you have to allow me the same grace of just being able to plop my Go or Rust binary on that server and have it magically work. It might even work BETTER because I don't need to check if my php.ini matches my dev machine.

[skrebbel]

There are tens of thousands of hosting providers around the world that offer exactly this service.

[rglullis]

Right, but isn't precisely this "drag from left to right and get a website running" that leads to an endless stream of sites that get hacked because the developer was careless/ignorant enough to leave admin.php with executable permissions?

[jasonlotito]

No.