Why PHP performance keeps getting bumped from the roadmap

Performance issues are familiar territory for PHP teams. Slow endpoints, uneven response times, and rising infrastructure costs show up in retrospectives, post‑mortems, and team chat threads with predictable regularity. What’s far less consistently discussed is how often teams commit time and resources to sustainably addressing performance. The gap between acknowledgment and action points to something deeper than language runtime limitations or tooling gaps; it speaks to how teams plan work, measure success, and define progress.