8 Best PHP Code Obfuscators

The Obfuscators are used to make the code intangible and impossible to read. This article describes the 8 Best Obfuscators in PHP.

8 Best PHP Code Obfuscators

It is always a big concern for programmers that their code can be stolen or copied by someone else because it takes a lot of time to write and debug the code. There are a few techniques out there that allow programmers to prevent anybody from copying their code.

Obfuscation is one of them; this technique is used to completely alter the code so it is not readable by others. Most PHP obfuscators are written in PHP, making them easy to implement on PHP code.

Here are the eight most known and widely used tools/libraries as PHP obfuscators.

YAK Pro – PHP Obfuscator

The YAK PRO, abbreviated as "Yet Another Killer Product", is one of the best obfuscators for PHP. It is an open-source obfuscator for PHP.

The main features of this obfuscator are:

1. It can rearrange the code statements randomly.
2. It can delete unnecessary things like indentation and comments.
3. It uses the if goto to obfuscate the if, else, else if, for, while, do-while, and similar statements.
4. It can change every important part of our code, including functions, classes, labels, variables, namespaces, etc.

The YAK PRO is available on GitHub and can be downloaded from here.

PHP Obfuscator by Naneu

The Obfuscator by Naneu is used for PSR/OOP PHP code. This obfuscator is different from other obfuscators, usually using the eval() based obfuscation.

The Obfuscator by Naneu parses the PHP code. It can obfuscate the code parts like class, methods, variable names, etc.

This Naneu library was written to obfuscate the source for a private library which cannot be shared without steps to protect from stealers. The main features of this library are:

1. It is the best choice for PSR/OOP PHP code.
2. It supports PHP versions 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5, but to run this tool, we need any PHP version above 5.4.

This tool is available on GitHub and can be downloaded from here.

Eccenux POBS

The Eccenux POBS is one of the best obfuscators that compile the PHP code and make it unreadable. This tool doesn’t provide a bulletproof functionality, not anyone can read the obfuscated code, but the dedicated user can guess what we were doing in a single function.

Installing the POBS is very easy. Just download and unzip the file in the web server directory. The main features of POBS obfuscator are:

1. It can be used for large projects.
2. The configuration is very easy and doesn’t require much.

The Eccenux POBS is available on GitHub and can be downloaded from here.

pH-7 Obfuscator

The pH-7 Obfuscator is the best tool for protecting the open-source code when working on web hosting. The pH-7 Obfuscator is an open-source tool easily available.

The main features of this obfuscator are:

1. This obfuscator makes the code very difficult to read.
2. It can work with PHP 5.2 and higher versions.

The pH-7 Obfuscator is available on GitHub and can be downloaded from here.

Xeoncross PHP Compactor

The Xeoncross PHP compactor library is used to compress and obfuscate PHP code easily. This tool cannot be used to speed up the PHP code by compacting.

This tool can be used to know the projects’ real size by comparing the number of characters needed for running a class.

This tool is available on GitHub and can be downloaded from here.

smart-php-obfuscator

The smart-php-obfuscator is an excellent PHP obfuscator developed by Weidi Zhang. It is smart, as its name implies.

The main features of this obfuscator are:

1. It is an open-source obfuscator for PHP.
2. It is very simple and sophisticated.
3. It can support PHP versions 7.0 and above.

This obfuscator is available on GitHub and can be downloaded from here.

pmaslak/php-obfuscator

The pmaslak/php-obfuscator can be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes. It works similarly to YAK PRO.

The main features of this obfuscator are:

1. This is an open-source obfuscator.
2. It is under the MIT license.

The pmaslak/php-obfuscator is available on GitHub and can be downloaded here.

pl4g4/online-php-obfuscator

This Online PHP Obfuscator is developed by pl4g4. It is very easy to use.

We have to upload our PHP file on this Online PHP obfuscator, and it will create an obfuscated version. This tool is trustworthy because it will delete all the files once the obfuscation is done.

The main features of this obfuscator are:

1. It is an open-source tool.
2. We can download the obfuscated version of the PHP code.

Using these obfuscators can make the code tangible and unreadable, so it is not reusable and stealable.