[Jafo232]

Originally Posted by ssslippy

Xcache currently beats APC as far as which one is faster. Until you start running a dedicated cache machine then memcache becomes superior.

Memcache really has nothing to do with opcode caching, it is a memory object caching system so not sure how you compare either against it. We currently run all three (Xcache, eAcc, and APC) on different machines and they all use memcache.

As far as which one is faster, I have seen different results, but this benchmark is pretty accurate:

http://2bits.com/articles/benchmarki...-compared.html

Requests per Second | Single Request (milliseconds) | Memory (Max, MB) | Memory (Min, MB)
None: 10.41 96.08 24 24
eAccelerator: 31.26 31.99 23 18
XCache: 30.28 33.02 29 19
APC: 30.45 32.84 21 21


Conclusions

From the above results, one can come to the following conclusions:

* All op-code caches provide a noticable improvement for Drupal over a default PHP installation.
* The speed gain is about 3X.
* eAccelerator is marginally better than the XCache or APC both in terms of speed and memory utilization.
* Installation of each op-code cache is different: one has a Debian package, the other is installed from source and the third is via PECL.
* The configuration for each is also different. Some work well with a default install, others require more tweaking.

However, one must consider the fact that APC is actively maintained by PHP core developers, whereas Xcache is maintained by one person and what happens when he loses interest or otherwise moves on?

Myself, I tend to stick with APC just because the knowledge of the authors when it comes to PHP is intimate.