We report high-performance photodetectors of individual single crystalline Zn₃P₂ nanowires. A facile catalyst-free physical evaporation process was developed to synthesize high-quality single crystalline Zn₃P₂ nanowires (NWs) with high yield. A typical individual Zn₃P₂ NW photodetector exhibited fast speeds (the response and recovery times were less than 25 and 26 μs, respectively) and high gain (∼470), which is an excellent result towards getting a balance in the speed and gain trade-off of the semiconductor nanostructure-based photodetectors. In addition, the device had the advantages of high photosensitivity (I_photo − I_dark/I_dark ≈ 100) and small device size (constructed on an individual nanowire). All these merits substantiate that the Zn₃P₂ nanowires can serve as excellent photoconductive materials, and the Zn₃P₂ NW photodetectors are very promising for practical applications.