Like I said in the blog post, if I tell you the sky is blue and you don't believe me; run them yourself. FWIW, C# is faster now for that particular use case. Also, like I mentioned in a previous blog post ... which one would you rather maintain:

- https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/C-Sharp/blob/master/Algorit... -- merge sort in C# 130 lines

- https://www.w3resource.com/php-exercises/searching-and-sorti... -- merge sort in PHP 60 lines

PHP is often far more concise than C#, and many other languages. I code more in Go than C# or PHP these days, but even Go has its limitations where it would be easier to express in PHP than Go. There are even certain classes of algorithms that are butt-ugly in Go but quite pretty in PHP.

PHP is still my favorite language, even though I hardly get to use it these days.

> PHP has a very specific usage which is web applications.

Originally, yes. But it outgrew that about 10 years or so ago. It's much more general purpose now.[1][2]

[1]: https://nativephp.com/ -- desktop applications in php

[2]: https://static-php.dev/ -- build self-contained, statically compiled clis written in php