I use PHP for administrative tasks on a server that runs wordpress and few other PHP apps. My only reservation is that PHP API to start external processes are

I use PHP for administrative tasks on a server that runs wordpress and few other PHP apps. My only reservation is that PHP API to start external processes are awkward. They either use a shell and require careful escaping of arguments or too low level with explicit fork/exec. I took care of that with few utilities, but for a quick replacement of shell scripts this is a significant drawback. On the other hand modern PHP supports types out-of-the box. It turned out to be a big plus when those administrative scripts grew in size.