TL;DR: In I/O-bound PHP applications, reducing Docker CPU by 87% (from 4 to 0.5 vCPU) and memory by 96% (from 8 GB to 256 MB) has zero measurable impact on RPS. All configurations delivered 93–94 RPS under 50ms database latency. The bottleneck is external (database wait time), not internal (CPU or memory). Running PHP in … Read more
Choosing the right application server is one of the most important architectural decisions you can make in the PHP 8.5 era. It directly impacts your response times, throughput, operational complexity, and infrastructure costs.
Over the past year, we systematically benchmarked PHP-FPM, RoadRunner, Swoole, and FrankenPHP. This article is not about telling you “X is the best” – it gives you a practical, data‑driven decision framework, not marketing hype.
After our deep dive into PHP 8.5 JIT modes and the bare metal application server benchmarks, many readers asked the same question: Does Docker really slow down PHP application servers? Today we benchmark PHP-FPM, RoadRunner, and Swoole in three scenarios: bare metal, Docker default bridge network, and Docker host network + CPU pinning. The results are surprising—with the right flags, Docker can actually outperform bare metal.
After our initial JIT on/off benchmark and the I/O‑sensitive workload analysis, many readers asked two specific questions: Which JIT mode (tracing vs function) delivers the best real‑world performance? and Does the JIT behaviour differ between traditional PHP‑FPM, long‑running application servers like RoadRunner, and event‑driven servers like Swoole? This article answers exactly those questions. This PHP … Read more
