I've always liked PHP. You wouldn't pick it for your job interview's coding test if you had a choice (Python all the way there), but it's so intertwined with the internet and what we've learned about programming over the years. First mover advantage kind of deal.

And I've never had to deal with ESM/CJS/AMD whatever module nonsense with PHP. No transpiling anything, just edit and refresh. And so many useful functions out of the box (array_column anyone?).

I think its bad rap comes from its ubiquity. Pretty much any existing website I've had to work on has been a putrid mess. That's just the way codebases go unless you're a SaaS with a CTO who's hell bent on preventing that.

And since most of these putrid messes have been based on PHP, due to it's age and ubiquity, people blame it, due to observation bias.