Ask HN: PHP vs Static HTML processing
How much more processing does a dynamic PHP page require over the same page in static HTML?
For instance, the Apache MaxClients setting formula many follow is, MaxClients = Total RAM dedicated to the web server / Max child process size.
Child process size for serving static file is about 2-3M. For dynamic content such as PHP, it may be around 15M. More memory = more connections.
Apache server performance can be improved by adding additional hardware resources such as RAM, faster CPU etc. but you might be able to achieve the same results with some simple custom Apache configurations on your current setup.
Here is a link for Apache 2.2.3 if you are interested: http://cloudservers.rackspacecloud.com/index.php/Configuring...
However, you could set the timer in php, and then compare having php build the html vs the php page outputting the html.
That way you are also only comparing the time it takes for php to load the difference, and not differences in how web servers deal with different mime-types, etc.
I suspect you are talking in the less than 1 millisecond range difference though.
A static page is obviously going to be faster though.
It depends on the time that your database query or http call takes, and how much data you are returning, and how much processing you have to do on it. A well written query or call won't have too much of a negative impact, maybe making the page two times slower than a static. A poorly written query strategy could make a page a thousand times slower.
xdebug and timing code are helpful.