Yes, I do know what CGI (typically Perl) and PHP are.
I've used PHP + mysql myself.
Well yes, to be honest, I'd rather use C++ for server-side applications rather than PHP or Perl, if I could make it work. Honestly, I don't know how because I haven't done it.
Mostly the reason is speed (native vs interpreted) and syntax (Perl syntax confuses me with all its operators and all that).
If it was a job, then PHP or Perl would probably be used instead, part due to it being easier and part being that it's platform independent.
But with server-side, it's not a 50+ OSes you have to worry about, though, unlike web pages.