Is there a list of large sites (heavy traffic, lots of members and a lot of content) using EE?

I really like EE, and I would like to use it for one of my sites. The thing I’m a bit concerned about is the rather heavy use of SQL queries, in comparison to other software I have looked at.
Seeing some example of large sites using EE, and/or knowing that cutting down on queries and optimizing EE is being worked on for future version, would make my decision a lot easier.

Thanks in advance!

Take a look at the featrues sites on the pmachine.com homepage. ilounge.com and applematters.com certainly are heavily trafficked sites.

See Paul’s response in this thread, as well.  As far as load, there have been some excellent discussions on that in the pre-sales forum, see Nevin’s responses and Leslie in that same thread, lists a few high traffic sites.

Thanks Ingmar, although I had checked out those sites earlier.

Thanks for the links Lisa. There were some useful info there, but I still haven’t been able to see any examples of “large sites” using the EE forums.
It seems the ones referred to have choosen to not use the default one. Maybe that’s because no convertors have been available, maybe it’s because they feel the need to use more feature rich forums for their sites, or maybe it has turned out to not be stable enough to use EE’s forum module?

Trust me, I’m not trying to start a “EE is not good” thing here. I really like a lot of what I’ve seen of EE. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have signed up for the 30 day trial.
The thing that kind of worries me is reading that the forum is using over 20 queries, when my current one with a lot more features is using 6. Maybe the same differences will appear when comparing the blogs part of EE with other software?

I just want to feel confident in that I’m making the right choice before deciding to switch. Seeing some examples of EE forums with at least 200-300 active members/guests would make things feel better. Also some explaining of the use of queries compared to other software would make things feel better, and make a switch decision easier.

Many of the site owners do not come to these forums (usually those that visit are those that need help) and so it can be hard to say who is using what and how busy that what is, if that makes sense.  A search for “forums” in the site intro forum here (using advanced search) comes up with a few that looked to me to be fairly busy.  It would be worth going through those.

And, of course, this very forum is quite busy. =)

Some of the sites on the featured list (pmachine.com) also run forums that seem to fall within your criteria, such as Apple Matters.

Korak - 13 November 2005 01:02 PM

Thanks Ingmar, although I had checked out those sites earlier.

Thanks for the links Lisa. There were some useful info there, but I still haven’t been able to see any examples of “large sites” using the EE forums.
It seems the ones referred to have choosen to not use the default one. Maybe that’s because no convertors have been available, maybe it’s because they feel the need to use more feature rich forums for their sites, or maybe it has turned out to not be stable enough to use EE’s forum module?

Trust me, I’m not trying to start a “EE is not good” thing here. I really like a lot of what I’ve seen of EE. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have signed up for the 30 day trial.
The thing that kind of worries me is reading that the forum is using over 20 queries, when my current one with a lot more features is using 6. Maybe the same differences will appear when comparing the blogs part of EE with other software?

I just want to feel confident in that I’m making the right choice before deciding to switch. Seeing some examples of EE forums with at least 200-300 active members/guests would make things feel better. Also some explaining of the use of queries compared to other software would make things feel better, and make a switch decision easier.

Korak, Mac360 isn’t quite as large a site as AppleMatters, iPodLounge, MacDailyNews, but we use the EE Forums. Forums are pretty much a horsepower issue, but we’ve had zero problems since we launched the Forums on a PowerMac and then moved the whole site to pMachineHosting. We also run forums using vBulletin (with an EE frontend) and Invision and phpBB. The EE forums run very well, even when under heavy traffic (when compared to others). The integration with EE is a great bonus. I’d be surprised is a major forum application is generating only six SQL queries without something being cached. Regardless, no issues when using EE and when compared with dedicated Forums apps.

Korak - 13 November 2005 01:02 PM

I just want to feel confident in that I’m making the right choice before deciding to switch. Seeing some examples of EE forums with at least 200-300 active members/guests would make things feel better. Also some explaining of the use of queries compared to other software would make things feel better, and make a switch decision easier.

Well, these forums have way more than 200-300 active members/guests, so that meets your definition of large. We use the stock install of the forums here, no modifications. It has been rock solid for us. Also the Applematters.com forums mentioned earlier is on the EE discussion forums. They have a customized design on their forums, but it is the stock install. They are a large, active community (they just gave away a mac-mini, which generated quite a bit of forum traffic).

Between the pMachine.com and Applematter forums you have two great example of large EE sites. Is there anything specific you’re looking for?

Thanks a lot for your replies! I think I have what I wanted to know.

Now, I “only” need to be able to convert from IPB to EE.

Keep in mind that one query is not always like the next one… 100 optimized queries in an application even against a large database of information is likely going to be less processor intensive than 10 not well thought out queries against less data in a smaller database.  Also it all comes down to how well MySQL settings are optimized for the type of data being stored.  Do you have MySQL 4.x’s (or newer) caching, buffers and such optimized well, or are you using pretty stock settings that likely are not going to do your script justice no matter how well the script performs its queries.  Saying 6 queries is better than 100 queries is not a valid assumption as there are WAY too many variables.

Also ALWAYS keep in mind that a sites performance when you hit a site may have to do more with so many other variables than simply, “well they are running EE and their site seems slow”.  Is the server hardware overloaded with too much traffic in general (ie: apache/php/mysq even drive I/O functions or TCP/IP stack overhead is too much for the hardware its running on currently), are they being hit with a reference to their site from Slashdot or similar and again hitting hardware/OS/other resource limits.

You could go on and on.  ilounge.com will soon be moving to a load balanced web server solution because they simply have too much traffic to be handled by the hardware they are currently on, macdailynews.com just recently moved to new server hardware because their site traffic had outgrown what they were running on before.  A performance issue with EE or other scripts (ad banner tracking software) they are running?  Maybe.  But the bottom line is everything from the OS, scripts, server applications, hardware and network all have to be considered.  Impossible to say EE can handle x visitors per second/minute/hour/month, because there are too many other things unrelated to the script that might affect that

EDIT:  When I say “EE” above, you could insert any application name in there.  Scripts rely heavily on the underlying techology that are processing them.

RedFlagDeals is a the most popular ‘deals’ site in Canada. The forums are vBulletin, but I think the rest of the site is EE - the founder is quoted in the ‘Business Pros’ section of the EE home page. the 2.5 million posts/1000++ concurrent users in the (vBulletin) forums should give you a sense of how popular the home page/non-forum pages are…