PHP caching: shm vs. apc vs. memcache vs. mysql vs. file cache (update: fill apc from cron)

Lessons learned:

• shm/apc are 32-60 times faster than memcached or mysql
• shm/apc are 2 times faster than php file cache with apc
• php file cache with apc is 15-24 times faster than memcached or mysql
• mysql is 2 times faster than memcached when storing more than 400 bytes
• memcached is 2 times faster than mysql when storing less than 400 bytes
• php file cache with apc is 2-3 times faster than normal file cache
• php file cache without apc is 8 times slower than normal file cache

Tests were made with PHP 5.3.10, MySQL 5.5.29, memcached 1.4.13, 64bit, 3.4GHz (QEMU):

shm
0.031 0.020 0.021 0.021 0.026 0.028 0.032 0.042 0.084 0.155 0.290 0.629 0.110
Total: 1.489, Avg: 0.115

apc
0.025 0.025 0.025 0.026 0.031 0.036 0.043 0.060 0.106 0.171 0.328 0.756 0.097
Total: 1.728, Avg: 0.133

memcache
3.116 3.014 3.005 3.072 3.077 3.910 3.929 4.067 4.308 10.371 15.323 25.013 3.281
Total: 85.488, Avg: 6.576

memcache socket
1.736 1.756 1.981 1.780 1.809 1.907 1.941 1.983 2.225 9.368 14.071 24.897 1.979
Total: 67.435, Avg: 5.187

memcached
2.241 2.540 2.713 2.769 2.897 3.249 4.286 5.298 7.729 10.539 16.021 28.060 2.578
Total: 90.919, Avg: 6.994

mysql myisam
3.267 3.291 3.310 3.295 3.700 3.777 3.888 4.078 4.368 6.272 6.930 9.626 3.726
Total: 59.529, Avg: 4.579

mysql memory
3.238 3.360 3.470 3.502 3.310 3.346 3.681 4.108 4.370 6.286 7.279 7.079 3.397
Total: 56.426, Avg: 4.340

file cache
0.593 0.595 0.593 0.609 0.546 0.563 0.574 0.600 0.648 0.800 1.115 1.956 0.775
Total: 9.966, Avg: 0.767

php file cache
0.177 0.176 0.175 0.180 0.187 0.188 0.195 0.210 0.236 0.318 0.479 0.901 0.228
Total: 3.650, Avg: 0.281

(10b  0.1k  0.3k  0.5k  1k    2k    4k    8k    16k   32k   64k   128k  array)

Notes: Numbers in seconds, smaller numbers are better, connection times for memcached and mysql are not counted, file cache was done on tmpfs.

Cold cache, fill apc cache from cron:

All entries in apc cache are kept in shared memory. Shared memory is available to the web server and is not shared with the command line php (php-cli). When the web server is restarted, the cache is empty and refilling the complete cache can create performance problems. To fill the apc cache with a cron job, we use a second script to dump the cache to a binary file and load it inside the web server:

// php cron.php
$data = array("cached"=>1, "hello"=>"world");
apc_store($data);
apc_bin_dumpfile(array(), array_keys($data), "/var/cache/apc_cron.bin");

// bootstrap.php, http://myserver.com/...
if (apc_fetch("cached")===false) apc_bin_loadfile("/var/cache/apc_cron.bin");

echo apc_fetch("hello"); // gives "world"

Related articles:

• MySQL 5.6+ InnoDB Memcached Plugin as a caching layer (from Mike Benshoof)

Here is the test script:

<?php
// memcached -m 64 -s /tmp/m.sock -a 0777 -p 0 -u memcache
// memcached -m 64 -l 127.0.0.1 -p 11211 -u memcache
set_time_limit(3600);
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set("display_errors", 1);
ini_set("apc.enable_cli", 1);
mysqli_report(MYSQLI_REPORT_STRICT | MYSQLI_REPORT_ERROR);

$data = array( // test are range from 10-128,000 bytes
  "1111111110",
  str_repeat("1111111110", 10),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 30),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 50),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 100),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 200),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 400),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 800),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 1600),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 3200),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 6400),
  str_repeat("1111111110", 12800),
  array(0=>"1111111110", "id2"=>"hello world", "id3"=>"foo bar", "id4"=>42)
);

echo "shm\n";
$t = array();
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = shm(4000+$key, $val);
echo stats($t);

echo "apc\n";
$t = array();
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = apc((string)$key, $val);
echo stats($t);

echo "memcache\n";
$t = array();
$m = memcache_connect("127.0.0.1", 11211);
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = memcache($m, (string)$key, $val);
echo stats($t);

echo "memcache socket\n";
$t = array();
$m = memcache_connect("unix:///tmp/m.sock", 0);
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = memcache($m, (string)$key, $val);
echo stats($t);

echo "memcached\n";
$t = array();
$m = new Memcached();
$m->addServer("127.0.0.1", 11211);
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = memcached($m, (string)$key, $val);
echo stats($t);

/* not in memcached 1.x
echo "memcached socket\n";
$t = array();
$m = new Memcached();
$m->addServer("unix:///tmp/m.sock", 0);
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = memcached($m, (string)$key, $val);
echo stats($t);
*/

echo "mysql myisam\n";
$t = array();
$m = new mysqli("127.0.0.1", "root", "", "t1");
mysqli_query($m, "drop table if exists t1.cache");
mysqli_query($m, "create table t1.cache (id int primary key, data mediumtext) engine=myisam");
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = mysql_cache($m, $key, $val);
echo stats($t);

echo "mysql memory\n";
$t = array();
mysqli_query($m, "drop table if exists t1.cache");
mysqli_query($m, "create table t1.cache (id int primary key, data varchar(65500)) engine=memory");
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = mysql_cache($m, $key, $val);
echo stats($t);

echo "file cache\n";
$t = array();
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = file_cache((string)$key, $val);
echo stats($t);

echo "php file cache\n";
$t = array();
foreach ($data as $key=>$val) $t[] = php_cache((string)$key, $val);
echo stats($t);

function stats($t) {
  return "\nTotal: ".number_format(array_sum($t), 3).", ".
    "Avg: ".number_format(array_sum($t) / count($t), 3)."\n\n";
}

function format($num) {
  return number_format($num, 3);
}

function shm($id, $data) {
  if (is_array($data)) {
    $arr = true;
    $data = serialize($data);
  } else $arr = false;
  $len = strlen($data);
  $shm_id = shmop_open($id, "c", 0644, $len);
  shmop_write($shm_id, $data, 0);
  $start = microtime(true);
  if ($arr) {
    for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) $v = unserialize(shmop_read($shm_id, 0, $len));
  } else {
    for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) $v = shmop_read($shm_id, 0, $len);
  }
  echo format($end = microtime(true)-$start)." ";
  shmop_close($shm_id);
  assert(substr(is_array($v) ? $v[0] : $v, 0, 10)=="1111111110");
  return $end;
}

function apc($id, $data) {
  apc_store($id, $data);
  $start = microtime(true);
  for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) $v = apc_fetch($id);
  echo format($end = microtime(true)-$start)." ";
  assert(substr(is_array($v) ? $v[0] : $v, 0, 10)=="1111111110");
  return $end;
}

function memcache($m, $id, $data) {
  memcache_set($m, $id, $data);
  $start = microtime(true);
  for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) $v = memcache_get($m, $id);
  echo format($end = microtime(true)-$start)." ";
  assert(substr(is_array($v) ? $v[0] : $v, 0, 10)=="1111111110");
  return $end;
}

function memcached($m, $id, $data) {
  $m->set($id, $data);
  $start = microtime(true);
  for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) $v = $m->get($id);
  echo format($end = microtime(true)-$start)." ";
  assert(substr(is_array($v) ? $v[0] : $v, 0, 10)=="1111111110");
  return $end;
}

function mysql_cache($m, $id, $data) {
  $d = is_array($data) ? serialize($data) : $data;
  mysqli_query($m, "insert into t1.cache values (".$id.", '".$d."')");
  $start = microtime(true);
  if (is_array($data)) {
    for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) {
      $v = mysqli_query($m, "SELECT data FROM t1.cache WHERE id=".$id)->fetch_row();
      $v = unserialize($v[0]);
    }
  } else {
    for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) {
      $v = mysqli_query($m, "SELECT data FROM t1.cache WHERE id=".$id)->fetch_row();
    }
  }
  echo format($end = microtime(true)-$start)." ";
  assert(substr($v[0], 0, 10)=="1111111110");
  return $end;
}

function file_cache($id, $data) {
  file_put_contents($id, is_array($data) ? serialize($data) : $data);
  $start = microtime(true);
  if (is_array($data)) {
    for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) $v = unserialize(file_get_contents($id));
  } else {
    for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) $v = file_get_contents($id);
  }
  echo format($end = microtime(true)-$start)." ";
  assert(substr(is_array($v) ? $v[0] : $v, 0, 10)=="1111111110");
  return $end;
}

function php_cache($id, $data) {
  $id .= ".php";
  $data = is_array($data) ? var_export($data, 1) : "'".$data."'";
  file_put_contents($id, "<?php\n\$v=".$data.";");
  touch($id, time()-10); // needed for APC's file update protection
  $start = microtime(true);
  for ($i=0; $i<100000; $i++) include($id);
  echo format($end = microtime(true)-$start)." ";
  assert(substr(is_array($v) ? $v[0] : $v, 0, 10)=="1111111110");
  return $end;
}