PHP versus Python 3 fastest programs Always look at the source code. These are only the fastest programs. Do some of them use manually vectorized SIMD? Look at the other programs. They may seem more-like a fair comparison to you. spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 7.51 35,364 1152 29.55 99% 98% 98% 98% Python 3 120.99 13,424 407 479.86 99% 99% 99% 99% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 71.75 12,072 1082 76.86 3% 1% 2% 100% Python 3 567.56 8,076 1196 570.95 0% 0% 0% 100% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 24.89 135,480 875 99.12 100% 100% 99% 100% Python 3 163.32 12,080 688 642.00 98% 98% 98% 98% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 63.18 44,168 1160 250.98 99% 99% 100% 99% Python 3 352.29 12,232 950 1,392.10 97% 99% 100% 99% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 18.64 1,588,704 760 67.29 89% 90% 96% 86% Python 3 51.07 278,324 589 178.28 85% 86% 93% 85% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 20.15 254,792 1079 69.22 91% 96% 80% 76% Python 3 46.28 241,108 1967 176.42 94% 97% 95% 96% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 22.82 12,356 1062 24.32 3% 2% 2% 100% Python 3 37.32 846,264 1947 71.03 10% 67% 83% 30% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 0.91 13,196 399 0.96 2% 0% 3% 100% Python 3 1.28 12,024 567 1.29 0% 1% 100% 0% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 7.06 534,336 446 11.90 14% 49% 40% 65% Python 3 7.20 1,005,184 814 10.75 20% 53% 48% 29% regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 1.73 162,348 816 3.58 37% 88% 44% 39% Python 3 1.36 111,852 1403 2.64 32% 40% 33% 88% PHP PHP 8.0.0 (cli) (built: Nov 26 2020 09:02:29) ( NTS ) Copyright (c) The PHP Group Zend Engine v4.0.0-dev, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies Python 3 Python 3.9.2 all PHP programs & measurements all Python 3 programs & measurements