Protect PHP code using Zend

Zend Guard also known as Zend Encoder, protects your commercial PHP 4 and PHP 5 applications from reverse engineering, unauthorized customization, unlicensed use and redistribution.

So in simple words it means that it hides your code. That is if someone has your PHP files they cannot view the code through dreamweaver or any other web development tool. When one tries to look at the code they just see junk values. So if you plan to make PHP applications and sell them like commercialize then go for zend encoder.

There are two catches here:

   1. First it is not free and can charge you from $600 to $999
   2. Second it needs zend optimizer (free) to run. That is the code which is encoded by Zend encoder gets decoded by Zend optimizer which is free. Zend optimizer claims to increase PHP performance as well.

So if you aim to commercialize your PHP application then this is the best thing. There are other options as well but I like this the best.

Zend source: http://www.zend.com/downloads