Zend Ecoder

encoding PHP

[TheWebographer]

Hi,

I am considering the purchase of Zend Encoder to, well, ecode the PHP scripts I create.

I've downloaded the evaluation version and it seems to work great. Has anyone here used the Encoder? If so, what has your experience using it been? Pitfalls? Anything unexpected?

Thank you in advance.

[jonknee]

My only complaint is that it does not run on MacOS X. Other than that it's solid. Expensive though.

[TheWebographer]

Well not so expensive with the small business program.

Have you been able to encode just certain files, and not others though they rely upon one another, and have the website work correctly?

[oilman]

I can understand why it would be used - especially if you're selling the scripts ie: copyright and all that. However, I recently bought a script that was zend encoded and it's been a horrible pain the butt to get it running. I will never again buy a script that's zend encoded.

[Vermont]

Yes Oilman,

I am doing some freelance work for what could be a competitor.

Over time I have developed some methods of doing things using PHP that I do not want to just give them - once they have the programs they can easily copy the code and modify it slightly for any other websites they create without even really understanding how the code works.

I have seen ecoded files - I certainly would not want to reverse engineer them!

[oilman]

I'm not really against Zend (bear with me as I back of my previous overstatement :)) - I think it's great for rolling your own stuff and keeping it protected. I've just found that not all hosts run the Zend engine or if they do they make you wrap your php ala cgiwrap and you have to run php locally and then modify the ini file etc. Installing a Zend encoded script is not for the newbie IMHO. Now that I've had my run in with it I could do it again I suppose but it was a hassle that's for sure.

[grey259]

I love Zend, and have it installed on all of my servers.. Most web hosts will install Zend on their servers if it is not already installed. The Zend engine, in addition to running scripts that are encoded, will speed up php processing.

Another option, if for some reason your host won't install Zend, is IonCube. It's slightly slower than Zend, but your host doesn't need to modify its php setup. All you do is upload a few extra files with your script, and it will run.

[ruserious]

You could also look for alternatives for the zend-engine. One I have read good things about is:
Turck MMCache

(Google for it, it's on freshmeat and sf)