PHP

PHP’s suite rows cover stdlib JSON, native serialize, optional PECL binaries (igbinary, MessagePack, LibYAML, SIMDJSON, MongoDB BSON), official google/protobuf, Symfony and JMS JSON (plus Symfony XML), Avro, CBOR, and pure-PHP MessagePack / YAML as userland baselines.

Runtime

What it is

PHP is often described as a language for web pages. This suite runs the CLI (command-line) binary, not PHP-FPM or Apache. The engine is Zend. It compiles a script to opcodes, which are an intermediate instruction set, and then executes those opcodes. The short, request-scoped life cycle of a web page does not apply here. One process runs many timed repetitions.

	This suite
Language	PHP 8.2 or newer (composer.json). The install script offers a static 8.3 CLI.
Packages	Composer (composer install)
Prepare	./scripts/install-host-requirements.sh php installs into ~/.local/php
Run	php/scripts/run-benchmarks.sh
Memory	Zend allocator, plus a garbage collector for cyclic structures

What this suite runs

The install script’s static CLI is built without PECL extensions. PECL is the usual way to add C extensions such as igbinary, msgpack, yaml, simdjson, and mongodb to PHP. Those rows register only when the matching extension is actually loaded. A missing row on the Dashboard often means this PHP binary was built without that extension. It does not mean the library is slow.

What changes the numbers

PECL and other C extensions are typically much faster than pure-PHP packages such as rybakit/msgpack and symfony/yaml. google/protobuf reports +ext or +php in the version column, depending on which implementation loaded. The built-in serialize format works only in PHP.

Suite-specific gotchas

A host that has the PECL rows and a host that does not are not the same matrix. Compare them only after you know which extensions were loaded.

These times cannot be ranked against another language.

Where to go next

The steps to install the toolchain and run the benchmark are in php/README.md. The language overview is What is PHP?.

Benchmark runner

• Directory: php/ (repository root)
• Output: logs/php/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS.csv (Language=php, times in nanoseconds)
• Runner: php/scripts/run-benchmarks.sh {smoke|all-single|full|research}
• Registration: php/src/Serializers/Registry.php
• Protobuf classes: php/scripts/generate-protobuf.sh (from schemas/v2/protobuf/benchmark_v2.proto)

PECL rows register only when the extension is loaded. This host’s static PHP CLI has none of those extensions, so those rows stay dark until igbinary / msgpack / yaml / simdjson / mongodb are present.

Serializers

Name	Category	Package	Stream	Notes
json	JSON	php-json	text_on_stream	json_encode / json_decode
simdjson	JSON	ext-simdjson	text_on_stream	Decode only is SIMDJSON; encode is json_encode
serialize	Binary	php-serialize	adapted	PHP-only
igbinary	Binary	ext-igbinary	adapted	PECL; skip if missing
msgpack-pecl	Binary	ext-msgpack	adapted	PECL; skip if missing
rybakit-msgpack	Binary	rybakit/msgpack	adapted	Pure PHP MessagePack
protobuf	Schema	google/protobuf	adapted	Official generated messages; +ext vs +php in version
symfony-json	JSON	symfony/serializer	text_on_stream	Serializer JSON encoder
symfony-xml	Text	symfony/serializer	text_on_stream	Serializer XML encoder
jms-json	JSON	jms/serializer	text_on_stream	JMS JSON
bson	Binary	ext-mongodb	adapted	Official BSON; skip if missing
avro	Schema	flix-tech/avro-php	adapted	Binary Avro (no object container)
cbor	Binary	spomky-labs/cbor-php	adapted	RFC 8949
yaml	Text	symfony/yaml	text_on_stream	Pure PHP YAML
yaml-pecl	Text	ext-yaml	text_on_stream	LibYAML; skip if missing
gld-arrow	Schema	leo-gan/gld-arrow-php 0.2.0	adapted	Arrow IPC stream for the five suite types
gld-ion	Binary	leo-gan/gld-ion-php 0.2.0	adapted	Ion 1.0 binary encode / decode

Specifics

Why each library exists, what problem it was written to solve, and how. Names link to the source repository (or the stdlib / in-tree path this suite times). A version after the name is the last measured SerializerVersion from this suite's latest bench.

json · 8.3.19

PHP's json_encode / json_decode are the language's standard JSON APIs. They exist so PHP can speak the web's data format without a package. This row times the bundled ext-json.

simdjson

ext-simdjson binds the simdjson parser to PHP. simdjson was created to parse JSON at memory-bandwidth speeds. This row uses SIMD only for decode; encode is json_encode.

serialize · 8.3.19

PHP serialize / unserialize is the language's native object format. It exists so PHP can persist values across requests. It is PHP-only and unsafe for untrusted input.

igbinary

igbinary is a PECL replacement for PHP serialize with a more compact binary. The problem was PHP's verbose native serializer in caches and sessions. igbinary drops duplicate strings and uses a denser layout.

msgpack-pecl

ext-msgpack is the official PECL MessagePack extension for PHP. MessagePack exists as compact binary JSON. The C extension is the fast path versus userland MessagePack.

rybakit-msgpack · v0.9.2

rybakit/msgpack is a pure-PHP MessagePack implementation. MessagePack exists as compact binary JSON. This package is the userland baseline versus the PECL extension.

protobuf · v4.33.6+php

Protocol Buffers were created at Google so many languages could share a compact, evolving binary contract without hand-written parsers. The problem was ad-hoc binary formats and verbose XML. Protobuf solves it with an IDL, generated code, and a documented tag/length wire format.

symfony-json · v7.4.18

The Symfony Serializer component was created so Symfony apps had a normalizer/encoder pipeline for JSON, XML, and more. The problem was ad-hoc json_encode of domain objects. This suite times the JSON and XML encoders.

symfony-xml · v7.4.18

The Symfony Serializer component was created so Symfony apps had a normalizer/encoder pipeline for JSON, XML, and more. The problem was ad-hoc json_encode of domain objects. This suite times the JSON and XML encoders.

jms-json · 3.32.9

JMS Serializer was created for PHP applications that needed annotation-driven object serialization (especially APIs). The problem was mapping rich object graphs to JSON. This row times the JSON encoder.

bson

BSON (Binary JSON) was created for MongoDB so documents could be stored and traversed without a text parse. Official language drivers implement that spec. This row times that library's serialize/deserialize path.

avro · 5.2.0

flix-tech/avro-php is a PHP implementation of Apache Avro. Avro exists for compact, schema-driven records. This row times binary Avro (not the object container file format).

cbor · 3.4.1

spomky-labs/cbor-php implements RFC 8949 CBOR in PHP. CBOR is the IETF binary JSON-like format. The library is a PHP encoder/decoder of that RFC.

yaml · v7.4.18

The Symfony YAML component is a pure-PHP YAML parser/dumper. YAML exists as a human-friendly config language. Symfony YAML is the common userland implementation in PHP apps.

yaml-pecl

ext-yaml is the PECL binding to LibYAML. YAML exists as a human-friendly config language. The extension is the C-speed path versus Symfony's pure-PHP YAML.

gld-arrow · 0.2.0

gld-arrow-php is a from-scratch Apache Arrow library for PHP. This row writes one IPC stream for a suite value or a batch and reads it back. It is not the columnar data set.

gld-ion · 0.2.0

gld-ion-php is a from-scratch Amazon Ion library for PHP. Ion exists as a typed superset of JSON with a binary encoding. This row times Ion 1.0 binary encode and decode on the five suite types.

Not in this suite (and why)

These candidates from the intake lists are not rows:

Candidate	Why not
Goridge / RoadRunner	RPC framing, not a fixture codec
opis/closure, laravel/serializable-closure	Packs executable closures — not suite data, and a security surface
salsify/jsonstreamingparser	Decode-only SAX parser
clue/ndjson	Line-delimited stream, different payload
Symfony CSV	Nested fixtures are not a CSV table
Spatie laravel-data / Laravel serialization	Framework hydrators, not a wire format
YAS PHP / AMQP codecs	No official PHP codec for this suite’s fixtures
Cap’n Proto PHP	No official PHP runtime
FlatBuffers / Thrift PHP	No generated PHP tables in-tree yet (can be added like protobuf)
PDO / custom hydrators	Object mapping, not encode/decode of bytes

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