Node.js vs PHP performance regarding handling requests

I read somewhere that node handles sequence of request from same client in different way than PHP. It was something about creating context for each client so after first request client has it's own context and next request would be processed faster. In comparsion to PHP where each request makes initialization of whole application.

I'm not talking about socket.io neither nothing similar - in such case I know how it works as connection is maintained.

Is there something like that in pure node.js?

from Node.js vs PHP performance regarding handling requests