is it time to move from memcache to memcached

Question

In 2009-07-07 was released the first stable of memcached, the php library based on libmemcached.

Now you have two options (in php) memcache or memcached.

memcache is the usual one, but memcached promise many improvements over the other one: one of my favorites are fact of use libketama for keys which allow sharing keys between languages (like Ruby, Python, etc.)

so, did you have a chance to use/test it, do you feel is it ready for a live enviroment?

Edit: the reason I ask this is because move from one driver to other means a great effort that I'm not sure to yet.

Answer 1

I have been using the new version of memcached since it came out. I have written about that just a few hours ago here on stackoverflow.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1442411/using-memcache-vs-memcached-with-php/1442747#1442747

I haven't seen any implementations in frameworks of the new API, but I usually write and use my own. There are some subtle differences between the clients, but if your code is well designed your shouldn't have much problems moving to the new client.

So to answer your question, yes I think it is time to move the new library. If you do, be sure to update to the newest server version as well as it also has some nice new features (not to mention bugfixes).

Answer 2

The old C library libmemcache.so had some serious bugs and leaks. The new C library libmemcached.so, which is the basis of PHP memcached, was written specifically to not have those bugs and leaks, and also has significant performance improvements. It is also under active maintenance.