Benchmark PHP 8.1 vs PHP 8.0 vs PHP 7.4 vs PHP 7.3 vs PHP 7.0 vs PHP 5.6 vs PHP 5.5

I have run benchmark PHP 8.1 vs PHP 8.0 which was released on November 25, 2021.

New features on PHP 8.1

• Enums
• Fibers
• Readonly Properties
• Intersection Types
• never return type
• final class constants
• New fsync and fdatasync functions
• New array_is_list function
• New Sodium XChaCha20 functions
• GD: AVIF image support
• Intl: New IntlDatePatternGenerator class
• Phar: Added OpenSSL-256 and OpenSSL-512 signature algorithms
• GD: Lossless WebP encoding support
• New #[ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute
• First-class Callable Syntax
• $_FILES: New full_path value for directory-uploads
• Array unpacking support for string-keyed arrays
• Explicit Octal numeral notation
• Hash functions accept algorithm-specific $options
• MurmurHash3 hash algorithm support
• xxHash hash algorithms support
• FPM: Configurable child-process spawn rate
• Curl: DNS-over-HTTPS support
• Curl: File uploads from strings with CURLStringFile
• MySQLi: New MYSQLI_REFRESH_REPLICA constant

The benchmarks I did are very simple, but represent what we use most of the time.

I chose to use a php script from php-benchmark-script.com and make some code adjustments because it doesn’t run on PHP 8.1.

Benchmark script run the following test:

• Test Math: 200.000
• Test String Manipulation: 200.000
• Test Loops: 20.000.000
• Test If Else If: 20.000.000

Below is the benchmark script:

<?php
ini_set('display_errors', 0);
/*
##########################################################################
#                      PHP Benchmark Performance Script                  #
#                          2010 Code24 BV                               # 
#                                                                        #
#  Author      : Alessandro Torrisi                                      #
#  Company     : Code24 BV, The Netherlands                              #
#  Date        : July 31, 2010                                           #
#  version     : 1.0                                                     #
#  License     : Creative Commons CC-BY license                          #
#  Website     : http://www.php-benchmark-script.com                     #	
#                                                                        #
##########################################################################
*/

	function test_Math($count = 200000) {
		$time_start = microtime(true);
		//$mathFunctions = array("abs", "acos", "asin", "atan", "bindec", "floor", "exp", "sin", "tan", "pi", "is_finite", "is_nan", "sqrt");
		$mathFunctions = array("abs", "acos", "asin", "atan", "bindec", "floor", "exp", "sin", "tan", "is_finite", "is_nan", "sqrt");
		foreach ($mathFunctions as $key => $function) {
			if (!function_exists($function)) unset($mathFunctions[$key]);
		}
		for ($i=0; $i < $count; $i++) {
			foreach ($mathFunctions as $function) {
				$r = call_user_func_array($function, array($i));
			}
		}
		return number_format(microtime(true) - $time_start, 3);
	}
	
	
	function test_StringManipulation($count = 200000) {
		$time_start = microtime(true);
		$stringFunctions = array("addslashes", "chunk_split", "metaphone", "strip_tags", "md5", "sha1", "strtoupper", "strtolower", "strrev", "strlen", "soundex", "ord");
		foreach ($stringFunctions as $key => $function) {
			if (!function_exists($function)) unset($stringFunctions[$key]);
		}
		$string = "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog";
		for ($i=0; $i < $count; $i++) {
			foreach ($stringFunctions as $function) {
				$r = call_user_func_array($function, array($string));
			}
		}
		return number_format(microtime(true) - $time_start, 3);
	}


	function test_Loops($count = 20000000) {
		$time_start = microtime(true);
		for($i = 0; $i < $count; ++$i);
		$i = 0; while($i < $count) ++$i;
		return number_format(microtime(true) - $time_start, 3);
	}

	
	function test_IfElse($count = 20000000) {
		$time_start = microtime(true);
		for ($i=0; $i < $count; $i++) {
			if ($i == -1) {
			} elseif ($i == -2) {
			} else if ($i == -3) {
			}
		}
		return number_format(microtime(true) - $time_start, 3);
	}	
	
	
	$total = 0;
	$functions = get_defined_functions();
	$line = str_pad("-",38,"-");
	echo "$line\n|".str_pad("PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT",36," ",STR_PAD_BOTH)."|\n$line\nStart : ".date("Y-m-d H:i:s")."\nPHP version : ".PHP_VERSION."\nPlatform : ".PHP_OS. "\n$line\n";
	foreach ($functions['user'] as $user) {
		if (preg_match('/^test_/', $user)) {
			$total += $result = $user();
            echo str_pad($user, 25) . " : " . $result ." sec.\n";
        }
	}
	echo str_pad("-", 38, "-") . "\n" . str_pad("Total time:", 25) . " : " . $total ." sec.\n";
	
?>

The specification of my server is

• Operating System: CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009 (Core)
• CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1650 v3 @ 3.50GHz 6 Core 12 Thread
• Memory: ECC 256GB
• Disk: SSD Enterprise

Below the results of Benchmark PHP 8.1 VS PHP 8.0, PHP 7.4, PHP 7.3, PHP 7.0, PHP 5.6 and PHP 5.5

Benchmark Result of PHP 8.1

[root@serverdiary share]# /usr/bin/php bench.php
--------------------------------------
|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2021-12-02 16:48:35
PHP version : 8.1.0
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 0.320 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 0.353 sec.
test_loops                : 0.016 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.008 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 0.697 sec.

Benchmark Result of PHP 8.0

[root@serverdiary share]# /opt/remi/php80/root/usr/bin/php bench.php
--------------------------------------
|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2021-12-02 16:48:41
PHP version : 8.0.13
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 0.316 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 0.380 sec.
test_loops                : 0.134 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.225 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 1.055 sec.

Benchmark Result of PHP 7.4

[root@serverdiary share]# /opt/remi/php74/root/usr/bin/php bench.php
--------------------------------------
|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2021-12-02 16:48:50
PHP version : 7.4.26
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 0.318 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 0.414 sec.
test_loops                : 0.129 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.278 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 1.139 sec.

Benchmark Result of PHP 7.3

[root@serverdiary share]# /opt/remi/php73/root/usr/bin/php bench.php
--------------------------------------
|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2021-12-02 16:48:59
PHP version : 7.3.33
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 0.266 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 0.372 sec.
test_loops                : 0.203 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.301 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 1.142 sec.

Benchmark Result of PHP 7.0

[root@serverdiary share]# /opt/remi/php70/root/usr/bin/php bench.php
--------------------------------------
|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2021-12-02 16:50:26
PHP version : 7.0.33
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 0.338 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 0.492 sec.
test_loops                : 0.224 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.318 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 1.372 sec.

Benchmark Result of PHP 5.6

[root@serverdiary share]# /opt/remi/php56/root/usr/bin/php bench.php
--------------------------------------
|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2021-12-04 14:32:57
PHP version : 5.6.40
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 1.167 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 1.239 sec.
test_loops                : 0.625 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.860 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 3.891 sec.

Benchmark Result of PHP 5.5

[root@serverdiary share]# /opt/remi/php55/root/usr/bin/php bench.php
--------------------------------------
|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2021-12-04 14:33:10
PHP version : 5.5.38
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 1.176 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 1.279 sec.
test_loops                : 0.652 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.903 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 4.01 sec.

Conclusion: PHP 8.1 greatly improved, about 34% faster than PHP 8.0, 39% faster than PHP 7.4, 49% faster than php 7.0, 82% faster than PHP 5.6 and 82% faster than PHP 5.5.

So with PHP 8.1 I can handle more client. And PHP 8.1 can lower your TTBF (Time To First Byte), and improve your SEO.

Also read: How to Check TTFB (Time To First Byte) using CURL

Time to first byte (TTBF) is one of the many reasons why a website is fast or slow.

Now, Google use website speed as SEO ranking factor. Google tells that users won’t wait slow site.