PHP is going through a technical renaissance and does not deserve (some of) the bad rep it has: http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/03/the-new-php.html http://radar.o

PHP is going through a technical renaissance and does not deserve (some of) the bad rep it has: http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/03/the-new-php.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/03/the-new-php.html The community is huge and there are plenty of mature software and components to use. I would not be shy of using PHP and wouldn't worry about hiring challenges in the next few years. That said, I would not hang my business on a single technology. Building with a combination of PHP and Node.js should be a good bet as these compliment each other and will provide developers chances to learn new things.