Perl versus PHP fastest programs Always look at the source code. These are only the fastest programs. Look at the other programs. They may seem more-like a fair comparison to you. reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 6.35 1,495,212 287 6.54 100% 2% 0% 0% PHP 7.30 508,064 438 11.41 2% 30% 55% 69% spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 25.68 12,092 555 101.06 98% 99% 98% 98% PHP 17.84 24,120 1152 71.08 100% 100% 100% 100% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 37.86 1,253,064 652 132.61 84% 95% 87% 85% PHP 24.68 215,640 1079 88.67 93% 81% 96% 89% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 411.70 6,564 1429 435.04 2% 2% 55% 47% PHP 221.47 7,836 1082 226.63 1% 100% 1% 1% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 61.34 55,252 871 61.71 0% 0% 100% 0% PHP 32.86 8,004 1062 33.02 0% 100% 0% 0% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 1.89 8,344 261 1.90 100% 1% 0% 0% PHP 0.99 9,116 399 1.01 1% 0% 1% 100% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 395.61 12,132 570 1,576.97 100% 99% 100% 100% PHP 129.48 22,468 1160 514.90 99% 99% 100% 99% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 84.89 2,519,528 761 309.94 98% 91% 88% 88% PHP 26.46 1,584,464 751 96.13 85% 97% 91% 90% regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 9.99 156,124 820 29.82 51% 96% 61% 91% PHP 1.71 271,952 816 3.50 37% 75% 43% 50% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load Perl 532.78 43,996 586 2,130.59 100% 100% 100% 100% PHP 73.71 123,856 875 294.40 100% 100% 100% 100% Perl This is perl 5, version 32, subversion 0 (v5.32.0) built for x86_64-linux-thread-multi PHP PHP 7.4.7 (cli) (built: Jun 25 2020 16:42:51) ( NTS ) Copyright (c) The PHP Group Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies all Perl programs & measurements all PHP programs & measurements