Zend Optimizer is a program package for Windows that allows you to improve the performance of PHP projects, thus allowing for an enhanced speed of code execution. This is made possible thanks to the integrated Zend runtime compiler that oversees the intermediated code.

Overview

Since the application was designed as an extension for the PHP engine, it performs an automatic optimization of the scripts, while detecting files encoded by Zend Guard. The latter component is an obfuscation utility developed by the same company.

Setup

In order to be able to install the software distribution, you need to have PHP 4 or 5 deployed on the system, as well as a web-server like Apache. If you want to get all the components from a single source, you may use PHP Triad. During the process itself, you will be asked to locate the PHP.ini file, which contains information required for a successful deployment and runtime.

Testing

To verify that the program has been properly installed, you can use a simple PHP function such as phpinfo(), which will return basic information, namely version and copyright.

Please note there are some tweaks that are necessary for the tool to run efficiently. The PHP features like Debug mode, Thread Safety and Enabled Versioning need to be disabled. It is also recommended to deactivate or remove third-party extensions, as they may cause compatibility issues.

Features

free to download and use;
compatible with modern Windows versions;
gives you the ability to speed up code execution;
requires a PHP 4 or 5 installation to run properly;
you can optimize files encoded by Zend Guard.