title: What makes PHP slower than Java or C#?
body: <p>This is something I've always wondered: Why is PHP slower than Java or C#, if all 3 of these languages get compiled down to bytecode and then executed from there? I know that normally PHP recompiles each file with each request, but even when you bring APC (a bytecode cache) into the picture, the performance is nowhere near that of Java or C# (although APC greatly improves it).</p>
  
  <p>Edit:
  I'm not even talking about these languages on the web level. I am talking about the comparison of them when they're number crunching. Not even including startup time or anything like that. </p>
  
  <p>Also, I am not making some kind of decision based on the replies here. PHP is my language of choice; I was simply curious about its design.</p>