Is a Java to PHP Bridge neccessary for this situation?

Question

We are dealing with an API that sends us a significant amount of data. I'm still in the architecture phase of the application, but my strategy is going to be to use PHP for the frontend portion and then for dealing with the API Id use a set of java classes and access them through calling a java file from the exec function in php. There's too much data for PHP to deal with this, which is why I am deciding to use Java, but I was curious if it would be ideal instead to use a java-to-php bridge? It says that using this bridge is significantly better for performance, but it would take some time to figure out how to install it and get it working.

Truthfully, I just want to call java classes with exec but if initiating a new JVM seems to be considerably intensive than I need to rethink my strategy.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Java Bridge could be one option: using Quercus or IBM's WebSphere sMash might be another. I've used all three options, but my personal preference is using an API. Calling java via exec isn't really an API