It so happened that I had to "reinvent the wheel", namely I wrote the package to run multiple processes in parallel — PHP MultiRunner. Yes, there are already a few similar packages out there on Packagist.org. But, when the one was needed, all the packages I tried had some weird limitations and bugs.

This package:

  - has a very simple interface;

  - can run any program, script or code that has an interpreter installed on the system;

  - works on both Windows and Linux;

  - allows you to transfer large amounts of data between processes and your code - tests confirm 1/6 of the value set by the memory_limit parameter in php.ini with 3 processes, i.e:

      - 21Mb with memory_limit=128Mb;

      - 42Mb with memory_limit=128Mb.

It does not require any other packages or extensions to be installed.

Hope you like the package! Your feedback is valuable, so please let me know what you think in the comments here or on the Github Issues page.