This news story presents a performance comparison of between different PHP compilers and runtime PHP execution engines, Why on Earth would someone rewrite a PHP execution engine.
PHP is extremely convenient these days as it is the best and the most convenient mode of operation and this will also help you have a better performance according to the nature of environment.
There are large numbers of operating systems available today but the popularity of PHP ha certainly increased because it is very user-friendly, convenient and easy to use.