It's important to note that all the PHP results that are high up on the lists are using Workerman[1] with the event module, Swoole[2] or ngx_php[3]. They don't

It's important to note that all the PHP results that are high up on the lists are using Workerman[1] with the event module, Swoole[2] or ngx_php[3]. They don't use the traditional PHP runtime model, which boots up and tears down the world for every request. Global variables, which are no problem in "normal" PHP code, are going to cause serious trouble in these environments. They are essentially gluing a very fast async IO framework to a fairly minimal amount of PHP application code. The vast, vast majority of PHP code you will find in the wild is running a more traditional stack, and those results are much lower down the list. The results are still impressive though. PHP is very good at gluing fast C code together without slowing it down much. Especially Workerman is impressive, since it appears to still run a significant amount of PHP code. [1]: https://github.com/walkor/Workerman https://github.com/walkor/Workerman [2]: https://www.swoole.co.uk/ https://www.swoole.co.uk/ [3]: https://github.com/rryqszq4/ngx_php7 https://github.com/rryqszq4/ngx_php7