The version of PHP that you are using can change the peak memory usage considerably:

For example, I run several large applications all written in Laravel4 some of which have over 40 service providers and hundreds of models.

• On my dev box running PHP 5.4.7 with APC, peak memory averages at 5.25MB.
• On one of our servers running PHP 5.3.28 without APC, peak memory averages at 22.25MB
• On another server running PHP 5.5.9 (which comes with its own op-cache), peak memory averages at 4MB.

Another smaller personal application of mine running under PHP 5.5.9, peaks at 3.75MB after the op-cache is warmed up with each page loading in under 50ms all on a basic linode vps.

At the end of the day each of the different server environments serves a pretty extensive application in under 100ms, often under 60ms; however that doesn't matter as we stick them behind varnish meaning most page views get returned in under 30ms.

I am also fighting with performance.

On my local (MBP, mamp...) I am always having around 18MB and 500ms. On my AWS Elasticbeanstalk (m1.small) it's 700ms.... using APC on both hosts. I could save some ms by reducing some cache calls ( http://laravel.io/forum/02-28-2014-accessing-the-same-cache-key-multiple-times-a-request ) by putting the results in a temporary config setting for one request.

Actually my api is working ok with 100-200ms, processing almost the same information. Now I want to investigate my blade templates (which aren't that complex)

dont use APC but PHP native opcache

for me :

• in dev mode without opcache, 300ms and 8MB
• in dev with opcache, 150ms, 2.75MB
• in production with opcache 100ms 2.75MB

+1 for opcache!

This is really great, came down to 7MB and 200-300ms from 18mb and 700ms. I also installed apcu but not sure at the moment if it also helps.

Thanks!