

Ask HN: What language(s) is Facebook written in? - natgordon

Facebook was originally written in PHP. What technologies is it using now?<p>I had someone tell me that they were moving from python/django to php because 1. it's easier to find PHP devs and 2. it's good enough for facebook. Is it?
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pinchyfingers
Really?!

They developed Hip Hop to transform PHP into C++, so I'd bet they are firmly
dedicated to PHP, and I really doubt that Facebook has any problems finding
developers.

PHP/C++, Cassandra, JavaScript, Flash, and whatever third party developers
choose to use as long as they use the Facebook API.

I don't actually know, maybe someone else will give you some more insight, but
I'm pretty confident about the PHP part.

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japherwocky
It's always been written in PHP, and they released a compiler for the language
that they developed in house:

[http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/02/facebook-open-
sourc...](http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/02/facebook-open-sources-
hiphop-php-compiler-software/)

~~~
zalew
and MySQL <http://www.facebook.com/MySQLatFacebook>

<http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=7899307130>

More interesting are how they use technologies rather than only which one,
f.ex this: [http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/02/facebook-makes-their-
web-...](http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/02/facebook-makes-their-web-pages-
faster/)

~~~
badave
Don't forget about Cassandra, which they developed just for scalability issues
that they were having, and is now used at Digg and other sites (I think reddit
uses it for something as well now)
<http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=24413138919>

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stratospark
Facebook developed the Thrift API to facilitate cross-language services:
<http://incubator.apache.org/thrift/>

I imagine they could use anything as long as it consumes Thrift. The extent to
which they do that is a question.

------
drallison
Take a look at the EE380 video for May 5, 2010 at <http://ee380.stanford.edu>.
Haiping Zhao from Facebook describes the _HipHop Compiler for PHP:
Transforming PHP into C++_.

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smarterch1ld
It's easier to find PHP devs.

Facebook is written in PHP. They crossed the point where switching made any
sense a long time ago.

This has absolutely nothing to with what you should use.

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jchonphoenix
From people on the inside.

Its written in PHP mainly. It has Java, C++, C, Haskell, Erlang, Python, Perl,
OCaml and some others littered throughout the site.

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waterlesscloud
Isn't the chat subsystem in Erlang?

~~~
stratospark
There are some good slides about this:

[http://www.erlang-
factory.com/conference/SFBayAreaErlangFact...](http://www.erlang-
factory.com/conference/SFBayAreaErlangFactory2009/speakers/EugeneLetuchy)

