If it's for the web only, nothing beats PHP right now in terms of speed and deployment (especially if you're on a budget and need to scale). I'll probably get a

If it's for the web only, nothing beats PHP right now in terms of speed and deployment (especially if you're on a budget and need to scale). I'll probably get a lot of flack for this, oh well - but PHP isn't as bad as people say it is provided you take advantage of OOP and separate your logic from presentation.