The Alternative PHP Cache is an Open Source alternative to Zend's proprietary equal. It is currently distributed under the QPL.
APC works by keeping a compiled version of the PHP scripts in cache, thereby eleminating one of the most time-consuming tasks in the execution process of an entire script. Performance will, of course, vary depending of the size and type of the script.
Some nice features are:
- SystemV Shared Memory (shm) or Memory Mapped Files (mmap) as cache
- Option to check for changed files and recache such
- Various PHP functions to monitor and administrate the cache.
APC is written for PHP4 and up and is distributed by Community Connect as source in a tarred and gzipped file, and as a binary deb file by Debian.
The site is located at http://apc.communityconnect.com/