Once Javascript started to get popular and it was clear it was the language everybody would need to work with, experienced people from other languages started to create libraries and transpilers that would either improve or limit javascript, and a very open process of &quot;natural selection&quot; started to shape ES6 and ES7.<p>PHP on the other hand remains shaped by people that don&#x27;t understand how badly designed PHP is and how the decisions that drive its design process are different from almost any other language.<p>ES6 onwards may be far from perfect, but it&#x27;s much more shaped by experience and good practices than PHP will ever be. This counts a lot,  you can currently design good code with javascript, while even PHP 7 still makes it impossible.<p>The fact that wordpress websites are 30% of the web masks the fact that there aren&#x27;t nearly as many php developers around.<p>Javascript won the web, PHP didn&#x27;t. PHP is just another language with decreasing popularity according to the last TIOBE index: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tiobe.com&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;content&#x2F;paperinfo&#x2F;tpci&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tiobe.com&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;content&#x2F;paperinfo&#x2F;tpci&#x2F;index....</a>