4 ms·

what would be a good hardware spec and server configuration to have 5000 users do long polling with a php backend?

by LinuxFreedom 9y ago

geon 9y ago
If you care about performance and traffic, perhaps php isn't where you should start anyway.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  Uh. You do realize that Mediawiki, powering nearly all wiki systems including Wikipedia, is written in PHP. Or Facebook, they were able to go with PHP for iirc 500 M users? PHP is in any case a better choice, performance-wise, than Python or, god forbid, Java.
  - cutler 9y ago
    PHP performs better than Java? Care to offer evidence?
    - mschuster91 9y ago
      Can't disclose much in public, but our PHP CMS hosting requirements tend to be waaaay cheaper than our Java-based CMSes. Also, deployment of PHP apps is (in my experience) faster and easier.
      - cutler 9y ago
        (cheaper hosting || faster deployment) != better performance
  - geon 9y ago
    Facebook built their own PHP-to-C++ compiler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_for_PHP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_for_PHP) and later a JIT compiler/VM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_Virtual_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_Virtual_Machine), with a custom, typed version of PHP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(programming_language) ). All just to make PHP a little faster. I think you are making my case.
    - mschuster91 9y ago
      HH transpilation was introduced in 2010. Depending on when exactly you look in 2010, FB had between 350-600M active users (https://www.yahoo.com/news/number-active-users-facebook-over-230449748.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/number-active-users-facebook-over...). Many websites don't ever get to 350M users, so it's safe to say that plain PHP will satisfy your startup for a long time. Also, PHP7 is pretty much on par with HHVM in real-world scenarios: https://kinsta.com/blog/the-definitive-php-7-final-version-hhvm-benchmark/ https://kinsta.com/blog/the-definitive-php-7-final-version-h...
      - geon 9y ago
        And the vast majority of websites never get 5000 concurrent users either. Your planned load obviously dictates the language as much as anything else.
      - SergeAx 9y ago
        Check out "experimental JIT branch" of PHP. It boost performance 1.5-2 times compared to current PHP 7.1, and they didn't start optimization yet. It blows HHVM out of the water, and I can't wait to compare performance with Java and .NET.
- LinuxFreedom 9y ago
  Yes, of course there are easy to use and much better programming languages for that - I just really wanted to read some "real-life" recommendations from that guy that mentioned "php" and "long-polling" in the same sentence. [Maybe it was just a joke and I did not get it... or I did get it but did not identify it as a joke... however... I would like to see some beef...]

what would be a good hardware spec and server configuration to have 5000 users do long polling with a php backend?

geon 9y ago

If you care about performance and traffic, perhaps php isn't where you should start anyway.

mschuster91 9y ago
Uh. You do realize that Mediawiki, powering nearly all wiki systems including Wikipedia, is written in PHP. Or Facebook, they were able to go with PHP for iirc 500 M users? PHP is in any case a better choice, performance-wise, than Python or, god forbid, Java.
- cutler 9y ago
  PHP performs better than Java? Care to offer evidence?
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    Can't disclose much in public, but our PHP CMS hosting requirements tend to be waaaay cheaper than our Java-based CMSes. Also, deployment of PHP apps is (in my experience) faster and easier.
    - cutler 9y ago
      (cheaper hosting || faster deployment) != better performance
- geon 9y ago
  Facebook built their own PHP-to-C++ compiler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_for_PHP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_for_PHP) and later a JIT compiler/VM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_Virtual_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_Virtual_Machine), with a custom, typed version of PHP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(programming_language) ). All just to make PHP a little faster. I think you are making my case.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    HH transpilation was introduced in 2010. Depending on when exactly you look in 2010, FB had between 350-600M active users (https://www.yahoo.com/news/number-active-users-facebook-over-230449748.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/number-active-users-facebook-over...). Many websites don't ever get to 350M users, so it's safe to say that plain PHP will satisfy your startup for a long time. Also, PHP7 is pretty much on par with HHVM in real-world scenarios: https://kinsta.com/blog/the-definitive-php-7-final-version-hhvm-benchmark/ https://kinsta.com/blog/the-definitive-php-7-final-version-h...
    - geon 9y ago
      And the vast majority of websites never get 5000 concurrent users either. Your planned load obviously dictates the language as much as anything else.
    - SergeAx 9y ago
      Check out "experimental JIT branch" of PHP. It boost performance 1.5-2 times compared to current PHP 7.1, and they didn't start optimization yet. It blows HHVM out of the water, and I can't wait to compare performance with Java and .NET.
LinuxFreedom 9y ago
Yes, of course there are easy to use and much better programming languages for that - I just really wanted to read some "real-life" recommendations from that guy that mentioned "php" and "long-polling" in the same sentence. [Maybe it was just a joke and I did not get it... or I did get it but did not identify it as a joke... however... I would like to see some beef...]