again, there were definitely huge problems with PHP prior to 5.6 and 7, but the flaws in the language that made it a security nightmare have been gone for about 10 years (at least). Now the main problem is that it's still used as a dynamically typed language with some type coercion and juggling that can lead to unexpected behavior.
But you can use strict_types! With strict types, PHP 8+ is a very nice language.