* be very fast, as we had compiled PHP into Apache.
  * be nice to program web applications with - right out
    of the box(with no additional modules or packages),
    you get the ability to mix PHP programming code in with
    html.  This was new for me, but I quickly grew to
    like it - A LOT!
  * come stock with a lot of great web stuff, including
    a session management framework that allows you to
    setup session management in flat files or in the
    database of your choice, relatively easily.

The "cons" I found, in comparison to Perl, were
  * Perl has(had?) better documentation
  * Perl has a better code repository
  * Perl has DBI which is the *excellent* Perl "standard"
    for interfacing to a database using a database
    "independent" interface.  This allows you to write
    code that is NOT dependent on any one specific
    database - therefore, the code allows you to port
    to a new database with a minimum of effort.

    Perl DBI also has an excellent mailing list, with
    LOTS of very experienced people waiting to answer
    questions.

    At the time(still?), PHP had no equivalent agreed
    upon "standard" database independent api.  I ended up
    writing my own database independent layer in PHP.