For page access, and display of data from the database, PHP _may_ be faster than page.cgi. But for building a site, keeping track of statistics, and managing a large site, you won't beat the speed of mod_perl.
PHP doesn't offer the static page capability of Links, which allows faster page serving with lower cpu load if you build static pages rather than serve everything dynamicly as PHP does.
I've looked at PHP as the solution to some things, but have always come back to PERL/cgi and maybe even emb_perl for the PHP-like functionality.
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