diff --git a/UPGRADING b/UPGRADING
index f4a455caefa..7a3aff95da8 100644
--- a/UPGRADING
+++ b/UPGRADING
@@ -117,5 +117,8 @@ PHP 8.6 UPGRADE NOTES
   . Arguments are now passed more efficiently to known constructors (e.g. when
     using new self()).
 
+- DOM:
+  . Made splitText() faster and consume less memory.
+
 - JSON:
   . Improve performance of encoding arrays and objects.
diff --git a/ext/dom/text.c b/ext/dom/text.c
index b08619252b8..4c503201c8b 100644
--- a/ext/dom/text.c
+++ b/ext/dom/text.c
@@ -127,17 +127,18 @@ PHP_METHOD(DOMText, splitText)
 	first = xmlUTF8Strndup(cur, (int)offset);
 	second = xmlUTF8Strsub(cur, (int)offset, (int)(length - offset));
 
-	xmlNodeSetContent(node, first);
-	nnode = xmlNewDocText(node->doc, second);
-
-	xmlFree(first);
-	xmlFree(second);
+	xmlNodeSetContent(node, NULL);
+	node->content = first;
+	nnode = xmlNewDocText(node->doc, NULL);
 
 	if (nnode == NULL) {
+		xmlFree(second);
 		php_dom_throw_error(INVALID_STATE_ERR, /* strict */ true);
 		RETURN_THROWS();
 	}
 
+	nnode->content = second;
+
 	if (node->parent != NULL) {
 		nnode->type = XML_ELEMENT_NODE;
 		xmlAddNextSibling(node, nnode);