So, we have determined we are cpu-bound and we need to go faster. What can we do? Some low-hanging fruit: include_path = "/usr/share/pear:." ]]> open_basedir = "/usr/share/htdocs/:/usr/share/pear/" open_basedir checking adds some extra syscalls to every file operation. It can be useful, but it is rather expensive, so turn it off if you don't think you need it. variables_order = "GPC" ]]> If you never use cookies, turn those off too output_buffering = On extension=apc.so apc.shm_segments=1 apc.shm_size=64 apc.num_files_hint=1000 apc.mmap_file_mask=/tmp/apc.XXXXXX CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/include/apache-1.3 \ ./configure' --enable-apc --enable-mmap --enable-sem http://lerdorf.com/php/syscall.txt http://lerdorf.com/php/non-pic.txt