The way PHP is built (start and die) on each execution. Compared to anything else, thats "running" PHP needs to do more work on each startup. This is also why i

The way PHP is built (start and die) on each execution. Compared to anything else, thats "running" PHP needs to do more work on each startup. This is also why its impossible to build a websocket server in PHP (without hacks like reachphp). this is one of the main reasons PHP IO (read req/res) is slow. You can search for benchmarks if you so choose, and a basic setup for PHP is usually in the 300-600 req/sec range.