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. regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 1.73 162,348 816 3.58 37% 88% 44% 39% Node js 4.82 1,150,424 668 5.90 10% 82% 1% 29% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 0.91 13,196 399 0.96 2% 0% 3% 100% Node js 1.31 36,792 599 1.33 1% 0% 99% 2% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 20.15 254,792 1079 69.22 91% 96% 80% 76% Node js 15.82 396,716 1812 44.48 63% 47% 81% 90% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 18.64 1,588,704 760 67.29 89% 90% 96% 86% Node js 7.20 1,282,116 744 20.39 83% 70% 68% 63% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 7.06 534,336 446 11.90 14% 49% 40% 65% Node js 2.21 1,534,824 1480 4.62 53% 22% 65% 68% spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 7.51 35,364 1152 29.55 99% 98% 98% 98% Node js 1.64 67,912 999 6.11 92% 93% 96% 92% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 63.18 44,168 1160 250.98 99% 99% 100% 99% Node js 11.38 65,452 1313 45.00 99% 99% 99% 99% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 24.89 135,480 875 99.12 100% 100% 99% 100% Node js 4.04 95,888 1122 15.91 100% 98% 98% 99% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 71.75 12,072 1082 76.86 3% 1% 2% 100% Node js 8.60 36,000 1268 8.85 100% 2% 0% 1% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load PHP 22.82 12,356 1062 24.32 3% 2% 2% 100% Node js 1.91 72,004 2047 6.18 81% 88% 78% 78% 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 v16.8.0 all PHP programs & measurements all Node js programs & measurements