There are plenty of great server-side languages and environments. C#,Java,Scala,Python,Ruby,Haskell.
If this was about JavaScript and Front-End I might've agreed with you (there are transpilers but interoperability with JS modules can be tricky), however in the realm of servers there's so much freedom.. so why choose PHP out of them all?
> plenty of great server-side languages and environments
Depending on the type of project, I would choose PHP over at least some of the languages you mentioned; I guess "great" is not a significant quality when making architectural choices.
Just to be clear: I was thinking about factors like performance, choice of servers, how easy it is to hire good developers, library ecosystem etc.
EDIT: obviously the "awesome aspects" mentioned by GP are a similarly unsubstantiated claim ;-)
The .NET CORE is now open source and cross platform. Cross platform compatibility with the exact same source code, and the killer features/speed of C# makes its my personal choice for a server-side language. I would like to add that C# devs are not cheap and also seem to be slightly more limited in today's market compared to PHP devs.
If you are running .NET code in production on a non-Windows platform today, then you and your team are probably braver and more willing to work around issues than most. I hope that running .NET code on Linux becomes the common case, but I suspect that we are still a couple of years away from that.
It might not be exactly what you had in mind as 'in production', but it's probably worth noting that Unity uses Mono as a core component, and it seems to be fairly popular on non-Windows platforms.
If you are building software that will be deployed by a large number of users, having PHP provided by every $3.99 & up hosting company can't be underestimated. Languages like Haskell are nonstarters.
If this was about JavaScript and Front-End I might've agreed with you (there are transpilers but interoperability with JS modules can be tricky), however in the realm of servers there's so much freedom.. so why choose PHP out of them all?