Chapter 15: Performance

PHP 7 is faster than ever. Most real-world applications will see a 100%+ boost in performance simply by upgrading! Here are some actual benchmarks from the Zend Performance Team¹:

This improvement is largely due to the PHPNG (PHP Next-Gen) project which refactored the Zend Engine to be super-performant. Some of the under-the-hood changes include things like:

• Using more-compact data structures
• Reducing the number of heap allocations and deallocations
• Utilizing native thread local storage

The net result is a faster PHP which also uses less memory. These changes also pave the way for future improvements, like JIT compilation, which will make PHP even faster.

Further Reading

• Zend: Turbocharging the Web with PHP 7
• Rasmus Lerdorf - PHP Australia Keynote