# How to speed up your Laravel application with PHP OPcache?

By Bobby Iliev, 2020-09-12. https://bobbyiliev.com/post/how-to-speed-up-your-laravel-application-with-php-opcache/

# Introduction

Using PHP [OPcache](https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.opcache.php) is a great way to improve your overall performance. OPcache stores pre-compiled script bytecode in memory, which eliminates the need for PHP to load and parse scripts on every request.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the Laravel along with OPcache to speed up your website!

# Prerequisites

In order for you to be able to follow along, you need to have a Laravel project up and running.

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# Enable PHP OPcache

There are a couple of ways of checking if you already have PHP OPcache enabled.

You could either add a PHP info file in your Laravel `public` folder with the following content:

```
<?php

phpinfo();
```

And then visit the file via your browser. After that, use `CTRL+F` and search for OPcache. You will see the following information:

![PHP OPcache with Laravel](https://imgur.com/bNin501.png)

Another way of checking if OPcache is enabled is to run the following command via your terminal:

```
php -m | grep -i opcache
```

The output that you would see the following result:

```
Zend OPcache
```

If you don't have OPcache enabled, you can install it with the following command on Ubuntu:

```
sudo apt install php-opcache
```

If you are not using Ubuntu, you can install PHP OPcache using `pecl`:

[https://pecl.php.net/package/zendopcache](https://pecl.php.net/package/zendopcache)

If you used the 1-Click image from the prerequisites, OPcache would already be installed for you.

# Configure PHP OPcache

Once you have OPcache installed, you can adjust some of the default configuration settings to optimize the performance.

To make those changes, you need to edit your `php.ini` file. If you are not sure where exactly the `php.ini` file is located at, you can again use a PHP info file to check the location.

If you have used the 1-Click image from the prerequisites, you will find the `php.ini` file at:

```
/etc/php/7.4/fpm/conf.d/10-opcache.ini
```

Using your favorite text editor, open the file:

```
nano /etc/php/7.4/fpm/conf.d/10-opcache.ini
```

Then at the bottom of the file add the following configuration:

```
opcache.memory_consumption=256
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=64
opcache.max_accelerated_files=32531
opcache.validate_timestamps=0
opcache.enable_cli=1
```

A quick rundown of the values:

* `opcache.memory_consumption=256`: This is the size of the memory storage used by OPcache. You can increase the `opcache.memory_consumption=256` value in case that you have enough RAM on your server.
* `opcache.interned_strings_buffer=64`: The amount of memory alocated to storing interned strings. The value is in megabytes. 
* `opcache.max_accelerated_files=32531`: The number of scripts in the OPcache hash table or, in other words, how many scripts can be cached in OPcache.
* `opcache.validate_timestamps=0`: With this directive, we specify that OPcache should not be cleared automatically, which means that we would need to do this manually. 
* `opcache.enable_cli=1`: This enables the OPcache for the CLI version of PHP, which could be beneficial if you are using any `artisan` commands.

Once you make the change, you need to restart PHP FPM:

```
systemctl restart php7.4-fpm.service
```

For more information on the OPcache configuration, make sure to go through the official documentation here:

[https://www.php.net/manual/en/opcache.configuration.php](https://www.php.net/manual/en/opcache.configuration.php)

# Configure Laravel OPCache

In order to have some better management over the caching, we will use the [Laravel OPcache](https://github.com/appstract/laravel-opcache) package.

To use the package, you would need to have Larave 7 or newer.

To install the package, just run the following command:

```
composer require appstract/laravel-opcache
```

One important thing that you need to keep in mind is that your `APP_URL` needs to be set correctly in your `.env` file so that it matches your domain.

Once you have the package installed, it provides you with some excellent PHP `artisan` commands which you could use to help you manage your OPcache:

* Artisan command to clear OPcache:

```
php artisan opcache:clear
```

* Artisan command to show OPcache config:

```
php artisan opcache:config
```

* Artisan command to show OPcache status:

```
php artisan opcache:status
```

* Artisan command to pre-compile your application code:

```
php artisan opcache:compile {--force}
```

# Conclusion

Enabling PHP OPcache is an excellent and quick way to boost the performance of your Laravel application without having to make any significant changes.

If you like the Laravel OPcache package, make sure to give it a star on [Github](https://github.com/appstract/laravel-opcache)!

I hope that this helps!