Hosting Terms
What is OPcache?
OPcache in plain English — the meaning, the comparison, and why it matters to anybody running a website.
Straight answer first
OPcache holds compiled PHP bytecode in memory so that scripts skip recompilation on every request — free speed for any PHP site on the server.
The sections below open it up properly — how it works, why a site owner should care, and a concrete example of it doing its job.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
0
Terms left unexplained
100+
Definitions, cross-linked
Real
Examples from real kit
Free
To read, naturally
Left to itself, PHP reads and compiles the source files afresh for every single request. OPcache does that work once and reuses the result until a file actually changes. On a codebase the size of WordPress, the saving lands on every uncached request, admin screens very much included.
Decent hosting enables it by default and ours is no exception, which makes it something to confirm rather than something to configure. Any phpinfo page will show you whether it is on.
The picture that makes OPcache stick
Keeping the translated script on the stand instead of retranslating the whole play before every performance. The cast starts on time, and only a rewritten scene sends anything back to the translator.
Comparisons simplify, naturally — but this one holds together well enough to reason with, and reasoning is the whole point of a glossary.
What it means for your own site
OPcache is the invisible floor under PHP performance. Without it even quick hardware feels sluggish, and having it properly sized is one of the quiet differences between a platform somebody tuned and a platform somebody merely switched on.
That is the test for any technical term, incidentally — not 'do I understand it fully' but 'do I know when it is the answer to my problem'. For this one, you now do.
What it looks like day to day
A WooCommerce dashboard pulls in hundreds of PHP files per screen and runs them all from precompiled bytecode. The compilation that would have dwarfed the actual work happened once, days ago.
Perfectly ordinary once you have seen it, which is rather the point: most hosting concepts are simple machinery wearing an intimidating name.
The Hosting Seller angle
You will meet it in the control panel and occasionally in a support conversation, usually already set the right way. If this term made sense, the natural next reads are PHP, Cache, Redis and TTFB.
Order an annual plan and the first year of your domain registration is on the house.
Why we bothered with a hundred definitions
Every confusing term in hosting turns into a support ticket sooner or later, so we defined the hundred most common ones properly, once, in the plain English we would use across the counter.
Backups run every day on every plan, and putting a file or a database back takes one click from the panel.
- 100+ terms, all in plain English
- Everyday comparisons and real examples
- Related concepts linked together
- Written by the people on the desk
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Grounded in real kit
Examples point at hosting you would actually use, not at an abstract diagram.
The stakes spelled out
Not only what it is, but when it turns out to be the answer to a problem you are having.
One term, fully landed
OPcache defined, pictured by comparison and placed in your own control panel — recognise-level in a single read.
Linked, never siloed
Related terms cross-reference each other, so one lookup grows into a working understanding.
Honest about what to skip
Most terms are recognise-level rather than operate-level, and the glossary says which is which.
The next reads, mapped
Read on into PHP and Cache — terms rarely stand alone, so the neighbours are linked.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Find it in your own account
The quickest way to learn a hosting term is to find it in your own panel; five minutes of looking beats an hour of reading about it.
- 2
Check what the defaults are
Confirm how your account has this set. It is usually right by default here, and now you will know rather than guess.
- 3
Follow the terms next door
Concepts travel in packs — PHP, Cache and Redis finish this one's picture, and each is a two-minute read away.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates applied for you
- cPanel, the panel the rest of the trade already knows
- Webmail in the browser plus IMAP, POP and SMTP for your own client
- One-click installs for WordPress and 400+ other applications
- The renewal price printed on the tag matches the order price
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
- Site migration done for you by our staff, at no charge
- NVMe SSD storage on every shelf, not just the top one
- PHP versions picked per site from the panel
- Nothing added at setup — no joining fee, ever
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Do I have to configure OPcache myself?
Not on managed hosting, where it is enabled and sized for you as part of the platform. On a VPS you switch it on in php.ini with a sensible memory allocation, and it is among the highest-yield lines in that whole file.
Is OPcache doing much the same job as Redis?
No, they sit at different layers. OPcache caches compiled code, which is the instructions for how to work something out. Redis caches results, which is what those instructions produced last time. A fully tuned PHP stack runs both, and neither one covers for the other.
Do you shift an existing site across at no charge?
We do. Open a ticket with the login details for your current host and the whole lot comes over: files, databases, mailboxes and configuration. You check the copy before DNS changes hands, and the old site keeps serving customers until the new one takes the traffic, so nobody ever sees a gap.
Which control panel comes with the account?
cPanel, which the whole trade already knows. That means every tutorial online matches what you see, your backups restore onto any cPanel host anywhere, and what you learn here stays useful for life. Plesk and DirectAdmin are stocked on specific plans for anyone who prefers them.
Are backups included, and can I put one back myself?
A backup is taken daily on every plan, and the restore is yours to run from the panel in minutes — files, databases or both, at three in the morning without waiting on a ticket. Keeping your own copy offsite as well is never a bad habit, and nothing here stops you.
What happens to my files if I leave?
The site and the files stay yours. Pull a full backup from the panel whenever you like, before or during cancellation. Domains remain registered in your name for the term you paid for and can move to any registrar once the standard 60-day window has passed.
Where do the servers actually sit?
Our hosting runs from European datacentres with London at the centre, behind server-level caching that keeps cached pages quick for visitors anywhere. For most sites the build of the platform — NVMe disks, LiteSpeed, sensible numbers of accounts per machine — decides the speed far more than the postcode does.
Read next
Cache
A cache keeps the result of expensive work ready to hand out again — pages, query results and assets served…
TTFB (Time To First Byte)
TTFB measures the gap between asking for a page and receiving its first byte — the server-and-network share…
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