The Swoole team has open sourced TypePHP, a compiler that turns PHP source code into native machine code. I saw Albert Chen post about it on X, noting it landed earlier than the October release the project had planned.
TypePHP is an Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compiler that translates PHP source code into C++ and then into native machine code. Unlike a bytecode cache or a VM, it does not interpret opcodes at runtime: it generates optimized native binaries that run directly on the CPU.
It keeps familiar PHP syntax and adds compile-time type information, so the compiler can emit fast, statically-typed C++ for hot paths. Dynamic PHP values, internal functions, reflection, and object metadata continue to interoperate with the Zend runtime through PHPX; user functions are not executed as Zend opcodes after they have been compiled.
TypePHP is written entirely in PHP and is fully self-hosting: the tpc compiler binary is built by compiling the compiler's own PHP source code with TypePHP. The bootstrap chain is pure PHP — no C or C++ glue in the compiler itself.
Checkout the TypePHP site for the docs and more information on the project.
