Thread: Are there any sites that have a large number of visitors?

Are there any sites that have a large number of visitors?

Hi,

I've looked through the showcase sites and couldn't locate a site that seemed to have a large number of visitors as measured by Alexa, Quantcast, Compete, etc.? I realize that many owners do not wish to advertise their domains on the showcase, but can you provide a link to one site that has relatively high traffic. I am asking because I am interested in the scalability of the application. Thanks.

Rich

I think the answer to this would probably require feedback from the community itself, as there's no way we would personally know what traffic is like for our customers.. Hopefully someone will provide a link for you to check out ;)

Thanks. Looking forward to some references.

Rich

WordPress being the application, it scales very well. Browsing through the showcase I see a few successful international sites with a bunch of posts. You definitely want to cache. If you're serious about ANY site, you definitely don't want to be on a shared hosting account. That said, you shouldn't let shared hosting stop you from building your idea out and getting the word out. Scaling is a GREAT problem to have. It means that your site is useful and gets attention.

It isn't hard to backup and move a WordPress install. Scaling in terms of hardware goes something like this:
Shared hosting --> VPS --> Dedicated Server --> Dedicated DB Server(s) + Dedicated Front End (proxy) Server(s)

You can do a LOT with a VPS when you replace Apache with NginX.

I've had a developer license of ClassiPress for a while. I finally need it. I'm leaning going with ClassiPress over an in-house Rails application because I know how well WordPress scales.

Hope this helps...

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I agree that Wordpress core has been very nicely tuned so that it scales well. However, this may not translate over to plugin/themes, especially if there are new features that require frequent database access. There are ways to optimize an application design if they are all well thought out so that database access is minimized for each interaction (e.g. pre-defined temporary memory storage tables to handle frequently access tables).

A brute force hardware approach is feasible but at significant costs to users, if you can imagine the total hardware costs (# of users * install instance) for the user base that are necessary to overcome sub-optimal design.

The problem is that most apps that I have looked at are not designed for scaling but are designed in order to minimize the initial coding effort. Re-working the design as performance and scaling becomes a problem can become a major issue.

Thanks again for your response.

Rich