PHP versus Node js 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. pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 0.91 13,196 399 0.96 2% 0% 3% 100% Node js 6.14 66,508 530 6.25 1% 0% 77% 24% regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 1.73 162,348 816 3.58 37% 88% 44% 39% Node js 4.79 1,159,940 668 5.86 91% 2% 1% 29% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 20.15 254,792 1079 69.22 91% 96% 80% 76% Node js 15.73 392,924 1812 43.25 91% 62% 75% 47% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 18.64 1,588,704 760 67.29 89% 90% 96% 86% Node js 6.95 1,309,892 744 21.41 76% 75% 88% 69% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 7.06 534,336 446 11.90 14% 49% 40% 65% Node js 2.13 1,525,096 1481 4.31 11% 70% 62% 60% spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 7.51 35,364 1152 29.55 99% 98% 98% 98% Node js 1.84 64,452 999 6.18 83% 86% 83% 83% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 63.18 44,168 1160 250.98 99% 99% 100% 99% Node js 11.97 63,036 1313 45.89 96% 96% 95% 96% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 24.89 135,480 875 99.12 100% 100% 99% 100% Node js 4.04 92,960 1122 15.95 100% 98% 98% 98% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 71.75 12,072 1082 76.86 3% 1% 2% 100% Node js 8.39 35,548 1268 8.74 0% 2% 2% 100% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 22.82 12,356 1062 24.32 3% 2% 2% 100% Node js 2.04 71,304 2047 6.32 75% 80% 80% 75% 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 Node js v15.10.0 all PHP programs & measurements all Node js programs & measurements