Phalcon is an open source full stack PHP framework written as a C language extension.
Phalcon is not an accelerator for PHP or projects written in PHP. (For a PHP-like language to produce high-performance C extensions please see Zephir)
Phalcon is a framework that implements its functionality using the low-level C language. C extensions are compiled together with your PHP code on load. Increasing the speed of you application and lowering your overhead.
Phalcon achieves this by:
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Taking advantage of native compilation by producing a binary executable representation of the code that a processor can directly understand and execute without the overhead of running bytecode in a virtual machine (VM).
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Reducing the memory footprint by using optimised specific-purpose C structures and static types C compilers, like GCC/CLANG/VCC. These perform several optimisations over the code improving performance.
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The ability to place variables and data in the stack. These would typically have a higher locality of access.
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Branch prediction is easier as it operates directly over the user code and not over the VM implementation. Mystical put together a great explanation on Stack Overflow.
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Having direct access to internal structures and functions reducing the computation overhead.
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Using Profile Guided Optimization (PGO) to improve performance based on existing execution profiles.
Per Wikipedia. Profile-guided optimization (PGO, sometimes pronounced as pogo), is a compiler optimization technique in computer programming that uses profiling to improve program runtime performance.
Phalcon relies on several internal design aspects of PHP such as memory management, garbage collection and its internal structures. The improvement of any of these aspects have a positive impact on Phalcon's performance as well in PHP.
Join our Discord channel, visit us at GitHub, or on the web at https://phalconphp.com/.