Short answer, if it's a web project (and I guess it is) go with PHP and you can integrate NodeJs services later.
@adzaria (Ezra Fayet) gave a great answer and I'd like to emphasize the first part: As a beginner you need to understand concepts first. For me that means to understand the web, how servers and requests work, APIs and few others.
Now, I'd like to add few things so, this is the long answer:
Why PHP?
- Everyone knows about the community - PHP is way older so you will find lots of resources and I am not only talking about learning - also lots of helpful tools and packages
- PHP is great for OOP - not perfect, but with PHP7 got great - and if you are a beginner you want to know good OOP for your future. Let's say JavaScript's OOP is a bit strange; I will not get into details but, let's say "it's not by the book". You can still learn JavaScript for your front-end
Why not Python? Python got popular because of AI - don't use PHP for AI and don't use Python for web applications. I can elaborate a lot here but I guess you get the point.
Why not NodeJs?
- NodeJs got popular because of sockets - and it works great, but as a service
- Try to find a good and affordable hosting for NodeJs. How about for Python?
- I would not ignore the security issues that it had and could appear. PHP is older and, therefore, wiser :)
Now, about a framework... is this a learning project or something that you need to do fast? My advice is to start a small project and not use any framework. However, you can use packages and inspire from a framework's architecture - Laravel is a good role model.
Why not start a big project? You will get distracted, get into details and product design stuff and get scared or border and abandon it. For your project you need an MVP - list of minimum required features that you put on paper - that you will complete. After that you can improve.
Good luck!
