The 100-million-row challenge has launched, pitting PHP developers against a massive data processing task. Running from February 24 to March 15, 2026, participants must parse 100 million page visit records into a JSON file faster than anyone else. The competition, hosted on GitHub by tempestphp, requires developers to fork the repository and implement their solution in `app/Parser.php`.

Participants generate test datasets locally using `php tempest data:generate`, with the default creating one million visits but the actual benchmark using 100 million. The challenge includes specific output formatting rules: URLs as keys with visit counts sorted by date, encoded as pretty JSON. Developers can validate their solutions with `php tempest data:validate` before submitting pull requests with their GitHub username as the title.

Sponsored by PhpStorm and Tideways, the competition offers substantial prizes including JetBrains licenses and Elephpants for the top three finishers. All entries must be submitted before March 15, 11:59PM CET. The benchmark runs on a standard Digital Ocean Droplet with specific PHP extensions available, deliberately avoiding more powerful hardware to test in a typical PHP environment.