Zend Optimizer+ will land in PHP 5.5

Zend Optimizer+ is to be integrated into the currently-in-development PHP 5.5. The announcement was made by Zeev Suraski, CTO and co-founder of Zend Technologies. The opcode cache and code optimiser was recently open sourced; previously it was only available as part of the proprietary Zend Server. It improves the performance of the interpreter by optimising the bytecode generated from PHP source files. It also stores precompiled bytecode in shared memory instead of reloading and recompiling source code from the hard disk when needed.

When it was open sourced, Suraski hoped it would open the way for Zend Optimizer+ to be integrated into the core of PHP 5.5 and filed an RFC to propose that. This proposal has now been voted on and approved with an "overwhelming majority" of 66 out of 77 approving the integration in general and 44 out of 70 for integrating it into PHP 5.5 even if there will be a minor delay, estimated at one to two months, in the release of PHP 5.5 because of that integration.

The Zend Optimizer+ is not the only opcode cache on the market. For example, the Alternative PHP Cache (APC) enjoys a wide circulation and was due to be provided as a native part of PHP 6.0, but has stayed in beta for PHP 5.4 because of a number of memory and caching problems. According to the RFC, the Zend Optimizer+ should be able to handle 5 to 20 per cent more requests per second than APC and is also better at handling erroneous cache behaviour.

(djwm)