I was reading up on how to spead up certain apache related thigns and stumbled upon a couple of pages dealing with these two. it seems to me ispcfg3 is using mod_fcgid, right? I was reading up on using an opcode cache with fastcgi and found this statement. that is the reason why I am asking the above question. here is a link to the original article in case anyone is interested: http://www.brandonturner.net/blog/2009/07/fastcgi_with_php_opcode_cache/ and here is another link dealing with children, managed by apache2 or php: http://wherethebitsroam.com/blogs/jeffw/apache-php-fastcgi-and-phpfcgichildren forgot to add I am running a server setup according to the Debian perfect serer set up with ispcfg3