How to understand when to use Node.js and when to use a regular backend on PHP or Python?

Hello everyone! I'm a beginner in web development and trying to figure out the stack choice for my first serious project. I'm building an online store. It will have: a product catalog, shopping cart, user account, admin panel for adding products, and possibly a real-time support chat. I've read that Node.js is cool because it's non-blocking and asynchronous. But I don't fully understand when this advantage is critical and when it's not. My friend recommends using PHP (Laravel), saying it's simpler: click a button — get a page. Another friend says the future is Node.js and I should learn it right away. I have a sample code in Express that I tried to write for a test API. Here's how I attempted to make a database query and return the result: ```javascript c