A free PHP source-code encoder in the spirit of ionCube and SourceGuardian: a Go CLI encrypts your PHP with XChaCha20-Poly1305, and a C PHP extension decrypts and runs it at runtime with OPcache integration for minimal overhead.

AthenaPHP encodes a PHP project so the source can't be read or tampered with, and ships a small Zend extension that decodes it at runtime. Same idea as ionCube or SourceGuardian — just ours.

How it works

Two pieces:

athena — a Go CLI that encrypts every .php file in a project
the athena extension — a PHP extension written in C that decrypts and runs them at runtime. No extension installed, nothing runs.

Key features

Targets PHP 8.3 and 8.4 on Debian 13, shipped as a .deb
Encryption built on libsodium
Reproducible builds inside a Debian 13 container — no PHP dev headers needed on your machine
Local build path (phpize) for development against whatever PHP you have installed

Who it's for

Anyone shipping commercial PHP to customer-controlled servers who'd rather their source stay closed.