

Drupal - can it be used for a large web application? - roc123

I wanted to get some opinions on the pro's and cons of using drupal for web applications vs using something like php with codeigniter. Would it be more difficult to maintain/scale/attract investors etc?
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vitovito
Drupal is a monolithic PHP application that uses MySQL for caching and
locking.

Scaling MySQL will be your bottleneck, alternating that with optimizing
queries and database usage in third-party modules. Most of Drupal Core is
written well enough.

Third-party modules support using memcached, mongodb, etc. These mostly help
with anonymous, session-less traffic.

Scaling out your authenticated, logged-in users means almost no caching,
requiring more web servers and more MySQL scaling, unless you architect your
application to support caching page segments updated with JavaScript from the
start.

Some of the work to support Edge Side Includes that's going on, and whatever
became of the "Butler" initiative, are improving that work for authenticated
users.

Like any system, it has its upsides and its downsides.

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RobGR
I agree with this assessment, except that as a person who specializes in
scaling Drupal I tend to be familar with the more common problems, and not too
intimidated by them. In addition, you can now buy fairly scalable hosting from
Pantheon or others.

I would add one comment: most projects fail because they don't get written,
and they never get to the stage where scaling matters. Thus, I would focus on
picking a tool that will allow you to get your project to the minimum viable
product stage as cheaply as possible.

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xer0x
I haven't had much success scaling Drupal or PHP. Yet, there are tons of sites
that have used it very effectively.

If you are starting a new project then I think you'll enjoy picking something
more modern to use as your foundation.

