I am not sure what do you mean by Fast here, but if you are trying to build something which has lots of quick interactions on frontend then you should definitely consider taking a look into frontend libraries and frameworks. React is a great way to build such views and the learning curve is very low. React + Flux is a pretty good way to build modern client-side heavy apps. These articles - tylermcginnis.com/reactjs-tutorial-a-comprehensiv… and devmag.io/post/1478/flux-for-stupid-people are good starting points. Whatever be the case, just pick one of these frontend frameworks and stick to it for a while.
Choice between PHP and Nodejs is totally upon. Points to consider would be- How proficient are you in PHP, if you are already pretty good with PHP and like its quirks then you probably don't need to make a switch just for the sake of it. But in case you are just beginning with PHP then I think it would be easier for you to use same language on server and client which is JS and there Nodejs makes sense.