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ShortFormErnie So I think that is a commmmmplex question for a lot of reasons. I mean, it is just as penalizing to any badly built React frontend too! That said, front-end PHP is def at a disadvantage in a web with a bias for speed! ...
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ShortFormErnie There are a lot of counter arguments though! PHP could be behind a good cache (a lot of my time as a professional WordPresser was fiddling w/cache settings for various sites for exactly that reason!). WordPress & others have APIs that allow you to separate front from back-end ...
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ShortFormErnie A lot of the people I know build WordPress site's front-ends on the REST API for that very reason. Heck, you could absolutely set up WP and it's API to bake static front-ends! (We have and it's pretty awesome, tho admittedly quite complicated!) ...
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ShortFormErnie I do think PHP is at a disadvantage though, especially w/the default setup of most PHP-based CMSes and sites. That would push many consumers away from... say... WordPress (it has moved a lot of my time away from PHP for exactly that reason) but...
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ShortFormErnie I also think this is a practices issue. PHP can render things very quickly, especially if servers and caches and databases are set up properly. The PHP community is perhaps a little less disciplined than it could be. But same w/Node!...
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ShortFormErnie It is a lot easier to avoid problems of a bad dependency tree impacting a Node front-end than it is to do so w/a PHP front-end. I think the speed focus is punishing of a particularly bad discipline that can be in some PHP-based CMSes/themes. But I dunno if that is so bad! ~fin~