PHP is unique in several ways: it's especially designed for the web, is a Web framework itself, comes with everything inbuilt, has C/Java syntax, has a shared nothing architecture, replaced VB as the most popular language for beginners, is used by most websites, is easy to use just drop a php file to Apache www dir. You simply can't objectively compare PHP to other languages because it's different to all others, it's unique. And due it's wide spread usage and earlier non-academic approach it still gets (rather unfairly) some bad reputation. Anyway PHP 7.2 is great, and Go too.