apc vs eaccelerator vs xcache

Question

Im doing research on which one of these to use and I can\'t really find one that stands out. Eaccelerator is faster than APC, but APC is better maintained. Xcache is faster

Answer 1

In all tests I have seen, eAccelerator performs faster than any other cache out there and uses less memeory to do so. It comes with a nifty script to view cache utilisation and clear the cache etc. eAccelerator is compatible with xdebug and Zend Optimizer.

APC is being included in PHP because it is being maintained by the PHP developers. It performs very well, but not as good as eAccelerator. And it has compatability issues with Zend Optimizer.

Xcache was made by the developers of lighttpd, benchmarks show it performs similiarly to eAccelerator, and faster than APC.

So which is the best?

APC = Great if you want an easy cache that will always work with PHP, no fuss. eAccelerator = If you have time to maintain it, keep it up todate and understand how it works, it will perform faster. Long term support not as certain as APC because APC is done by the PHP devs.

Answer 2

If you want PHP file caching only, you can use eAccelerator directly. Very easy to install and configure, and give great results.

But too bad, they removed the eaccelerator_put and eaccelerator_put from the latest version 0.9.6.

Answer 3

APC is going to be included in PHP 6, and I'd guess it has been chosen for good reason :)

It's fairly easy to install and certainly speeds things up.

Answer 4

Even both eacceleator and xcache perform quite well during moderate loads, APC maintains its stability under serious request intensity. If we're talking about a few hundred requests/sec here, you'll not feel the difference. But if you're trying to respond more, definetely stick with APC. Especially if your application has overly dynamic characteristics which will likely cause locking issues under such loads. http://www.ipsure.com/blog/2011/eaccelerator-as-zend-extension-high-load-averages-issue/ may help.

Answer 5

APC definitely. It's written by the PHP guys, so even though it might not share the highest speeds, you can bet on the fact it's the highest quality.

Plus you get some other nifty features I use all the time (http://www.php.net/apc).

Answer 6

Check out benchmarks and comparisons:

here and here and there