PHP Accelerators

Updated: eAccelerator download using latest code (0.9.5.1 with PHP 5.2.2).

Please find following the compiled binaries of eAccelerator for Windows using Microsoft VC++ 6. For PHP 4 versions: eAccelerator binaries for PHP 4.x.
If you need a version not offered here, let us know (post comment).

Update: eAccelerator compiled using latest code (0.9.5 RC1). I also recompiled a new version of 0.9.4 code (trying to resolve: getting multiple Apache 2.2.2 crash, per day, using eAccelerator with PHP 4.4.3).

Please find following the compiled binaries of eAccelerator for Windows

It looks like the author of Xcache grew frustrated with the current offering of PHP accelerators and decided to build a simple stable PHP accelerator. For example, eAccelerator works perfectly on multiple servers here but on others it crashes multiple times a day. I'm still investigating this: eAccelerator crash

This accelerator does not perform well at all under Apache 2.2.0. Just running one of my site used nearly all the memory (30M max).
The segment feature doesn't really work on Windows, so you're limited to 30M.
Update02/2006: Under Apache 2.0.55 and 2.2.2 it seems to perform normally.

eAccelerator seems faster then APC. But if you are running multiple instances of Apache on the same server you will appreciate a second caching tool for PHP. I use both APC and eAccelerator with production sites. APC seems to be getting better just in the last 3 months (since 01/2006).

Note: This accelerator might get better, in the near future, since some of the PHP developers appear to also be involved with APC.

Windows binaries download:
http://pecl4win.php.net/ext.php/php_apc.dll
Sitebuddy APC Windows Binaries for PHP 5.
Sitebuddy APC Windows Binaries for PHP 4.

I have been getting some instability running Apache with PHP + Accelerators under Windows 2003. I will log my finds in this article. Visit regularly for updates. I ended up running 7 Apaches on a Windows 2003 Server to test all different kinds of configurations. Recently because it was becoming complex, I started logging my finds. This page is probably for the hardcore debugging type...

Mitigating factors:
- Most crash seem to happen because of load (with very low traffic you might never experience problems).
- My PHP applications are very demanding. Especially Gallery2 which relies on external libraries for processing images. Again other PHP applications might not experience these problems.
-If you have issues with IIS, these finding might also be applicable.

eAccelerator crash (Updated)

I've created an article to try to track what works and what doesn't: Running Apache + PHP + Accelerators under Windows 2003

After moving a site with some traffic to an Apache 2.2.x server, I have been getting multiple Apache crash per day. Before I was only getting these about once a week. Here is what the error looks like in the Apache error.log:

Zend offer many additional tools for PHP, mostly commercial ones.
I prefer a manual installation (it easier to upgrade in the future). This generally holds true with most Open Source software on Windows.

1) Download the free Zend Optimizer.

Once in a while under Apache 2.0.55 or 2.2.2, I would get a crash with a line like the following in the log:
[7508] EACCELERATOR: PHP crashed on opline 48 of preg_replace() at G:\DomZeus\sitebuddycom\wwwroot\modules\search.module:354

This mostly likely an eAccelerator bug (not 100% sure).
Meanwhile here is a solution to try to avoid it. Since in my case the error happens regularly (once a day?) with the file search.module, I decided to tell eAccelerator to stop trying to cache that file with:

Under Apache 2.2.2 and 2.0.55 using APC (3.0.11-dev) I could not delete an image using Gallery2.

My temporary solution is to disable caching of Gallery2 classes in APC with:

apc.filters="-g2.*\.class"

 

ionCube PHP Accelerator
http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk/
Unix binaries only ?

This tool will maintain some state when running PHP as a cgi (php.exe). I used once for testing only, since I run all my PHP sites using the DLLs (none-cgi).
This could be handy is you are required to run your PHP scripts using php.exe.