Anyone here have comments on Zend Accelerator?
 

Taken from their website:

"With standard PHP every time a PHP script is accessed, the script is parsed and compiled by the Zend engine before it is executed. The Zend Accelerator, from the creators of the Zend engine, tightly integrates with the Zend engine and caches the PHP script in a post-compilation state. The next time the script is called, Zend Accelerator serves the cached code and the compilation process is saved."

The license fees start at 490 dollars per server. Is it worth it?

yes, NEVER smoke this shit!

Rick,

Better try a free option for this: PHP accelerator.

Does the same thing but is free. I have used it for nearly a year now without any problems. It did indeed reduce my server's load considerably (in my case with some 50%). It very much depends on what you do exactly, of course.

Hey, that's great advice. Thanks a bunch.

The free program is great, but we are going to buy the paid version and have been talking with them about doing so. With heavy php sites I hear it really does amazing things.

We have looked at it long and hard and we feel it is worth the $$

Hey Rick!

Hit me up on ICQ about this.

The Zend Performance suite is well worth the $$ from all I have heard. I know ARS uses it.
They have a free version, similar to what was mentioned previously in the thread, but hit doesn't hold up Zend's Premium version.

$490 per server?????? That is just patently absurd!!!!

Rick, why don't you just wait for someone to submit ( :winkwink: )
the software to your site and then you can use it for free!

Is this accelerator like mod_perl for perl based systems?
WG

You can cut the load on your box by 50% or more in many cases by using a cache for your php scripts. That means you can stretch your hardware further, which should be worth it in many cases. If you can get double the performance out of your $5000 server, that is worth $500. Of course there are some free solutions available, but ZPS is written by the guys that wrote the Zend engine that is at the core of PHP.

Personally, if money was tight I would go with one of the free caches, but if $500 / server is no big deal for you, then I think ZPS is worth the money.

Rick, hit me up 2891794 I can give you some more info on this.

-skazzel
(who has used ZPS over the past year)

Not really. Mod_PHP is like mod_perl, except it doesn't cache the compiled scripts (like mod_perl does in most cases). These cache addons just add caching to mod_php.

What I forgot to mention is that Yahoo actually uses the (free) PHP accelerator: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/contributors.html

Although the The ionCube PHP Accelerator, sounds fine (although i've seen some of these other products and some have had some memory leak problems 'not saying this one does'), however I don't know that I would trust it as much as the Zend Accelerator. The Zend Accelerator has always worked great for me, and who better to write this product than Zend. Just one look at the credits on php.net will tell you that you?re going to get quality with them. The service and support from Zend has been a step above any that I've come across in my 6 years on the web. I doubt you can get that with these free products.

Hell free is good in some cases but must we always cut corners. More than likely you?re running a free apache server, on a free linux or freeBSD box, with a free mysql database server, with the free php engine. Maybe it is time to give just a little back?

yea zend accelerator and ZPS are WAY worth the money.

i have use the free ones and they are to no avail. after all zend can develop tighter code on this since they know the php engine backwards and forwards having written it.

the people at zend are all good guys and they definately are willing to make deals with you.

i installed ZPS on a server and a report that used to take 3 minutes to pull up went down to 10 seconds.

I have been using this for many months without any problem. Highly recommended!

I hope not because mod_perl is the biggest evil to walk this planet.. ;)

Anyway, back to the subject: Don't use a PHP accelerator as an excuse for poorly written code. I personally have not seen much performance gain from a PHP accelerator, but that's just me. We tried one of the free versions but ended up ditching it as it made things worse for our customer. :)

The free one is being installed as I type this. I'll let you know how it works. I'm sure it is better than having no accelerator at all. The people from Zend claim that the free one causes mermory leaks and can crash your servers. If this is true that would be a very bad thing. However, it seems unlikely to me and I am willing to test the free one first, especially if Yahoo uses it.

Zends position is to go ahead and try because a lot of their business comes from people who install free software like this one and have problems with it. then they go to zend to clean up the mess. oh and btw, yahoo actually isnt using PHPA anymore, that is an old page.