Why some high performance web frameworks are not being used?

Question

http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r10
In this benchmark, the top ranked frameworks are mostly written in C/C++/Java.
However, as I can see, languages like Python and PHP (or even the runtime environment Node.js) are more frequently used in web development.
So why is that?

Answer 1

There are likely a number of reasons and factors. I have listed a few of the main ones below:

1. Performance isn't needed. A lot of web applications or frameworks don't need the raw performance that something like C++ offers. Interpreted languages like PHP are still perfectly adequate in terms of performance.
2. Productivity. Writing a web application in C++ will likely take a lot longer than in a language like PHP which is designed for web programming. Facebook actually write code in PHP and compile it to C++.
3. Barriers to entry. It (IMO) is harder to get started on a web-based project with the lower level, high performance languages like C++. To get started on a PHP project, just install Apache with the PHP module, and perhaps a DB and you're ready to start developing. With other languages there can be complicated CGI (Common Gateway Interface) setups to do first.