PHP is a templating system, we don't need another one Ok, sometimes you might, but don't do it at runtime No more than 1 stat() per PHP file per request Don't stat if Apache has already stat'ed the file Get rid of excessive stats in the streams code PHP 5.1 now has a stat cache to help this Use an opcode cache - APC works well Remove ./ from include_path and use relative path includes Use just a single base dir in include_path Avoid include_once/require_once