I have been working as a web developer for 10 years. Here is my little secret. I have started with PHP, then moved to Rails, then to Node. Guess what? I am finally back to PHP. Why? Because I am tired of chasing the hype to feel cool. I just need to get things done and PHP is just that. I like to use Vanilla PHP, but if you need more features, I would suggest Laravel.
I have similar experience but I'm not so quick to say I'm back to PHP. "Use the best tool for the job" is the way I think about it.
PHP is great for marketing websites that don't need a lot of javascript.
But Node.js still wins for javascript heavy web apps. This is because you can write a js validator that will run on the client-side and server-side. Sometimes this is called Isomorphic JS (or Universal JS).
For example, this app[0] shows how to render React on the server and the client with shared props.
That being said, my personal website[1] still runs PHP and I'm glad I haven't taken on all the build dependencies of a modern web app just to host a simple blog.
I like PHP as well, and ended up getting jobs that had these massive codebases that needed to be updated to modern standards. So, maybe not sexy but plenty of work.
Anyhow, I was recently fiddling with Elixir. Forget the hype and all that. If you like programming languages in general, I think you are going to enjoy this stuff for weekend projects.
