APCu is userland caching: APC stripped of opcode caching in preparation for the deployment of Zend Optimizer+ as the primary solution to opcode caching in future versions of PHP. APCu only supports userland caching (and dumping) of variables, providing an upgrade path for the future. When O+ takes over, many will be tempted to use 3rd party solutions to userland caching, possibly even distributed solutions; this would be a grave error. The tried and tested APC codebase provides far superior support for local storage of PHP variables.