PHP is normally distributed in source code form and then interpreted for execution. However, if you distribute source code, anyone can easily remove those lines of code that are meant to protect your application.
So, like other languages, you need to compile your PHP code into a binary. There once was Hiphop by Facebook, which worked well, but is discontinued and they don’t have a PHP compiler any more.
Today there still is PeachPie, the successor of Phalanger which compiles PHP to .NET.
Pros:
- it uses the modern Roslyn platform, so this seems to get some support in the future
- it’s still actively maintained (as of 2024-08-24)
Cons:
- it compiles to .NET. Not everyone can easily run .NET apps on their server.
- it compiles to .NET. The IL code of .NET can still be reverse engineered quite easily. You may need additional steps like obfuscation.
If this does not work out for you, the correct search term would be “PHP transpiler”.
