Best Framework/CMS/Platform for large community websites?
 

What do you think?

Drupal?
Silverstripe?
symfony?
CAKE?
Zend?
ROR or Python even?

To power websites like flickr (profiles, friends lists, groups, forums, uploads, comments etc), but with an added 'editorial' side for news, articles etc. With lots of logged in users serving millions of pages per month.

Interested in what you guys think!

where is joomla ?

I personally use my PHP framework, Dingo. I can't say I know how it would hold up to millions of users, but I would assume it would do just fine.

If you are looking for the traffic of sites like flickr, free tools probably aren't the best option. PHP in and of itself isn't a great tool for really high traffic sites. If you insist on using PHP for something like that, get familiar with C and start writing components for your heavier functions.

The fact that you do not know probably means it won't.

Then what is that great tool ?

By the way why can't I see the rest of your post ???

A "great" tool would be something that is not a scripting language. PHP is a slow messy scripting language that is hacked together by amateurs. High traffic sites need the fastest processes possible, the most noticeable way to do this is to run pre-compiled programs because they are already in machine code. C or C++ are great (if not the best when programmed well) tools for really high traffic sites, but ASP.NET is also a very capable tool that is easier to learn.

What you have quoted was my entire post at the time you quoted it (I edited it soon after posting)

Wheever I'm working on a large community site I look for the following:

1. Does it have the ability to draw a DB from a pool?
2. Does it have the ability to use Memcache?
3. Will the code scale?

If you're looking to use something out of the box, you may have the wrong idea. No matter what framework you want to go with, you're going to need certain tools.

PHP sites are capable of handling millions of users a day. It's an extremely fast scripting language. You just have to use it correctly.

So, if you're looking for a great framework to get started with, find the one you like. After that, prepare to mod it out.

As for me, i prefer home grown frameworks.

If by correctly, you mean making the intensive functions in C and adding them on, I would agree. But PHP is in and of itself slow because it is a interpreted scripting language. Even when cached, it is less efficient than hand written compiled code. The reason for this is that PHP code commands the PHP engine, not the machine.

I simply say I don't know because I've never tested it on a website with millions of visitors. I'm pretty sure it would do just fine, I just don't know, 100%, that it will. Likewise you wouldn't know if one of your apps worked on a site with millions of visitors until you tried it. I'm just using the word 'know' in the correct context. ;-)

Most apps I write would not because they are not specifically designed to do so. Are you saying that your framework was designed to run on extremely high traffic servers?

While dingo wasn't specifically designed to run on high-end servers, it is certainly capable of doing so. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be able to.

How much do you know of development of high traffic sites? If it is a pure PHP solution it probably means that it can't handle a very intense load.

Listen, I don't really want to get in a debate with an ASP.NET developer about how PHP isn't good enough for high traffic sites... But if you insist...

My one argument is going to be this: Wordpress. End of story.

I was not starting a debate with you on this, I was asking you a direct question about your experience. How much do you know of high traffic site development?

And before you label me as a ".NET developer", I know well more PHP than I do .net, I started web development with PHP and moved to .net on account of a good job. I am also experienced with C/++

I know plenty. Happy?

@Brook: Just a note, whatever you decide to do, DON'T use Cake PHP. It's extremely bloated and slow compared to other PHP frameworks.

Not really, but I don't want this to go any farther off topic and you clearly don't like my questioning, so I digress.

No, I mean straight out PHP.

I've worked with PHP to serve millions of users a day. If by "slow" you mean in comparison C, then you're wrong again. If you're going for straight out speed, then just write it in ASM.

The reason for this is because the linux kernal will cache the data being served. You even have the ability to save the compiled PHP - so you don't need to continously recompile your scripts.

If you believe PHP is a "slow" language, maybe you're in the wrong business. PHP is extremely fast and flexible.

Now, don't get me wrong. In order to serve MILLIONS of users a day, you need several web servers, a couple memcache servers, and a few database servers.

You'll usually set up your Master / Slave DB's, and use them correctly (balancing the selects, using a bucket list)

Then you'll need a couple memcache servers, where you handle which users use which memecache server. (Aka: hashing)

Your web servers will need to all share the same code base, and have a load balancer pool them.

You can impliment things like caching, but I'm able to serve hundreds of thousands of requests without any caching (Daily).

Dailymotion
Yahoo! Answers
Delicious

Are all using symfony as their framework - so I don't see why php is not a viable platform tbh..

I started learning php some months ago.After reading you post I think I wasted my precious time. So ASP.net better than php ?

You didn't waste your time.
PHP is a great language, and is used by many applications.

Not alot of sites has 1million hits per day, and none of the sites that anyone here on this forum will produce won't have half that.

But as an example, take vBulletin forum application. There are people who own forums using vBulletin that has over 10 million users. Sure they're not logged on at the same time, but they would probably recieve at least 100.000 logins per day, not to mention all the guests viewing the site.

It depends alot on the webhotel/server you're using.
Sure maybe C allocates memory better or more efficient, but PHP is definitely NOT a waste of time to learn.

Another reference is the many wordpress blogs that you see out there.