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 3 118.40 22,912 407 470.86 99% 99% 99% 100% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 71.75 12,072 1082 76.86 3% 1% 2% 100% Python 3 586.17 8,012 1196 589.84 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 3 172.58 12,216 688 689.62 100% 100% 100% 100% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 63.18 44,168 1160 250.98 99% 99% 100% 99% Python 3 367.49 12,288 950 1,454.68 100% 98% 99% 98% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 18.64 1,588,704 760 67.29 89% 90% 96% 86% Python 3 49.35 278,628 589 174.26 95% 86% 86% 86% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 20.15 254,792 1079 69.22 91% 96% 80% 76% Python 3 46.37 239,472 1967 176.69 94% 95% 98% 94% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 22.82 12,356 1062 24.32 3% 2% 2% 100% Python 3 39.10 846,628 1947 70.52 43% 8% 61% 69% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 0.91 13,196 399 0.96 2% 0% 3% 100% Python 3 1.28 12,336 567 1.30 1% 0% 1% 100% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 7.06 534,336 446 11.90 14% 49% 40% 65% Python 3 7.16 1,005,968 814 10.65 20% 53% 47% 29% regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 1.73 162,348 816 3.58 37% 88% 44% 39% Python 3 1.36 112,052 1403 2.64 40% 88% 32% 33% 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 3.9.0 all PHP programs & measurements all Python 3 programs & measurements