7.0 added scalar type declarations and a mechanism for strong typing. PHP 8.0 added union types and mixed types. PHP enforces types at runtime, Javascript/Typescript do not. PHP typesystem is built into the language, with Js u either need jsdoc or Typescript both of which wont enforce runtime type checks, Typescript even adds a buildstep. php-fpm allows u to not care about concurrency too much because of an isolated process execution model, with js based apps you need to be extremely careful about concurrency because of how easy you can create and access global stuff. PHP also added a lot of syntax sugar over the time especially with 8.5 my beloved pipe operator. And the ecosystem is not as fragile as Javascripts.