[mtogo]

Yeah, Django and Flask are just as easy (if not easier, thanks to services like Dotcloud) to deploy as PHP.

Let's take your VPS example. Install nginx, gunicorn, and your database of choice. Set up gunicorn to serve your app, set up nginx to serve static and proxy to your gunicorn instance. Do any app-specific setup.

That doesn't take any longer than deploying a PHP app, at least not for me.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Several PaaSes support PHP, too, so no major difference there. In a VPS environment, however, setting up PHP doesn't require anything - it works right out of the box - whereas Django and Flask require more packages to be installed /and/ require some lines of server configuration and a script that loads your framework.

[mtogo]

In a VPS environment, however, setting up PHP doesn't require anything - it works right out of the box

Well, you do need to install the AMP part. Since you're installing and configuring three components, why not install and configure different ones? It's not more or less work either way.

If you're talking about AMI/StackScript-style pre-built VPSes, there are plenty for various Ruby, Python, and Node stacks as well as PHP.