I've being used PHP since it was Personal Home Page (3.x or something). The reason I moved away from it, is it is language make up. Some point around 4 it try to become Java OO style (ok ES6 is trying to do that too). The main reason moving away from it is because would like to have language that has function as a first class citizen, and JS seems to fit the bill. Once I found the joy of developing with proper closure and using function as a first class citizen PHP just doesn't appeal to me. The best things about PHP is it's templating system. And with EJS or similar there is really no reason to use PHP anymore.