there is no single "native". you have different compilers for different languages. "native" (i.e. compiled) PHP is still slow. some interpreted languages are insanely fast. in theory, JITed languages could be faster than AOT-compiled languages; in practice that's rarely the case (https://wiki.c2.com/?SufficientlySmartCompiler).
hotspot is a just-in-time compiler, i.e. it's still compiled to native code; just not the whole codebase at once and prior to startup, but depending on usage statistics which are gathered during interpreted execution (hot code paths). you can leverage similar statistics in AOT with profile guided optimization.
as it stands, native_image starts a lot quicker, needs far less disk space and uses a lot less ram, which is important for CLI- and containerized apps. but it's slightly slower than hotspot, doesn't support dynamic code loading and of course you'll need to recompile your app for different platforms and architectures.
hotspot is a just-in-time compiler, i.e. it's still compiled to native code; just not the whole codebase at once and prior to startup, but depending on usage statistics which are gathered during interpreted execution (hot code paths). you can leverage similar statistics in AOT with profile guided optimization.
as it stands, native_image starts a lot quicker, needs far less disk space and uses a lot less ram, which is important for CLI- and containerized apps. but it's slightly slower than hotspot, doesn't support dynamic code loading and of course you'll need to recompile your app for different platforms and architectures.