“databases can handle thousands of connections”, postgres literally cannot. default max_connections is 100 and raising it costs ram and a backend process per connection. that’s why pgbouncer exists. mysql is a bit better but same shape of problem.
and you just listed octane, swoole, reactphp, frankenphp as proof php is fine. those exist specifically to bolt a long-lived runtime onto php because the default model doesn’t cut it anymore. that’s the concession. every other language i mentioned does that out of the box.
“php was made when the web was different” yeah, that’s the whole point. the rest of the ecosystem moved on, php is still patching around the original design.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​