PHP Accelerator

PHP, like other languages including ColdFusion and ASP suffers from one major set back; it compiles on the fly. Basically this means that your web server has to compile your PHP or web script every time it is executed, as apposed to other languages where you compile it once and deploy the executable. As you probably know, or can figure out this can lead to unnecessary overhead on web servers. There are a lot of accelerators on the market, some for pay and some for free, that will accelerate this process by caching PHP scripts in the compiled form, eliminating that step every time the script is executed.

I have been using these accelerators for a little over a year on my web servers and PHP projects. Specifically I use ionCube PHP Accelerator for reasons including:

1. It’s very easy to install, less than five minutes.
2. It does not make a mess and cleans up after itself.
3. It has enough options for customization, but not too much that makes it overwhelming.
4. It has the free price tag.
5. It supports numerous platforms and PHP builds.
6. It is smart and knows when a PHP script has been updated, and it needs to recompile.
7. It delivers results.

PHP Accelerator touts delivering five to ten times faster results, and I can say those numbers sound correct from my findings. I suggest anyone developing in PHP to install this accelerator, especially if you are on a shared hosting provider. PHP Accelerator will free up resources that might be working too hard. As always it is recommended testing this out in a sandbox environment with your PHP applications, before rolling it live. I have never had a problem with it, but I do not want to be the reason your applications go dark.