Why does PHP dominate the CMS space?

I've noticed people are looking for every nail to hammer with the Rust hammer: text editors, game engines, web frameworks. Why not CMS?

Not sure if anybody has the full answer to this, but I think it’s partially because PHP was one of the first languages that enabled dynamic webpage content. Wordpress (the biggest CMS) was built on top of that and dominated the market. First movers’ advantage, basically.

Because the language is so accessible and versatile.

That also has some downsides, of course, as people have been hating on it since it started.

But, as you've pointed out, it's hard to argue or dispute its dominance, so it must be doing something right. No language is perfect, they're all a series of tradeoffs that you have to discern, then decide on the best tool for the job.

It appears accessibility goes a long way, and low barrier of entry to "make it your own" is worth something.

It’s because even $5/month shared hosting plan has it. Simply put - PHP is everywhere!

Most CMS are installed via auto-installers (e.g on cpanel) and are also managed by mostly nontechnical users using shared hosting! So… if your CMS is written in Perl or Python with tones of modules required then you’re out of luck when it comes to adoption.

Mostly related to hosting requirements, thus hosting pricing.

For a PHP application (CMS or anything else) you rarely need something more than „upload these files on your FTP”.

For other languages you need access to CLI. And know-how on how to do this. And (sometimes) elevated access to install stuff.

PHP has been here for quite some time. Some CMSs also. Take a look at WordPress. I didn't check the recent stats but at one point something like 50% of all web sites were powered by it.