If you are already familiar with JavaScript, you will get more bang for the buck by going with Node.
Personally I used PHP for 2 years professionally. I was delighted when I could leave it behind. These days I use Node on the backend, and I'm very happy with it (although I use TypeScript rather than JavaScript to enhance maintainability). I also try to minimize the footprint of server-side code. Whatever I can do on the frontend, I do (this is also the trend in the industry now). Effectively I don't use server-side MVC anymore. The backend only exposes a REST API. Angular 5 on the frontend handles everything else.