I'm looking to purchase a PHP encoder and I was wondering if you guys could make some suggestions based on experience on what the best PHP encoder is? Thanks
ionCube is probably the most famous but I don't see why anyone would use it to be honest. Anyone clever enough to take your code and actually make something with it is also clever enough to decode what ionCube is able to do. Maybe not right away but given a few years definitely. I think it's an expensive way to bring more pain to users who want to make small modifications to your code and not steal it. It's up to you to ultimately decide however.
I would recommend using a compiled language instead, if you must protect the source code from those who use it on their servers then PHP is not the most optimal. A quick Google search will give you some options but I have never used them.
PHP encoders are really waste of time only. I used to use ioncube long ago, and everytime I made some little modification in code, found some little bug, then had to re-encode the whole thing again and then reupload whole thing. Not sure if this is still how it works, but was a big troublesome thing. You can also use zend encoder, made by PHP people themselves. I think extensions to load both zend and ioncube are available in cpanel hosting, so you will not need to modify your php built.
I'm with the crowd that trying to encode PHP is a waste of time; more so it's a bit of a douchy move. One of the entire reasons to use PHP is that it's source distributed, allowing each person to make any changes they want. You don't want people making those types of changes, why the blazes are you using PHP and not a compiled language? Or at least a bytecode / p-code distributed one...
Another vote for "don't bother" One of the key bits of advice given to anyone sourcing code is that they should be able to read it and get the gist of what it's trying to do. Things like being able to tell that it's not calling another website, running exec() etc. That doesn't mean you could write it yourself, but you can tell that it's honest. Therefore you don't download encrypted code because it could be doing anything. So your code will be dumped by anyone following that advice.
Top 5: Best Open Source PHP Code Obfuscator Libraries Eccenux POBS. PHP Compactor. Yakpro PO. pH-7 Obfuscator. PHP Obfuscator by Naneu.