I just ran some tests, with an html file and a php file, both containing “Hello World”. You can find the apache bench results here: http://pastebin.ca/1934137
Clearly they are much faster than any forum software, handling 5000+ and 9000+ requests per second each (I had to run apache bench with 100,000 hits to get a semi accurate reading)
As for a write once, read many times situation, blogs do exhibit such behavior more so than forums, I’ll admit. However, forums are certainly more read heavy than write heavy.
Take a look at phpBB.com’s support forum, http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewforum.php?f=46 . You will be hard pressed to find a topic without at least 5 times as many views as posts, and many of the sticky topics have over 100 times as many reads as posts. Show me any forum with more writes than reads and I will be impressed.
I’ll be running bbpress 0.9 later tonight, along with some changes to SMF that they suggested.
From my reading, we agree that 1.0 might not be a good choice for an admin when looking purely at performance, and based on your phrasing 0.9 may not be either (“bbPress 0.9 should be about halfway between the 1.x and other forum software”).
However, I will still post the apache bench output from a static file, and I will make that adjustment to the bb-config file.
I have tried integration between WordPress 3.0.1 and bbPress 1.0.2 and needless to say, everything went well except this:
If I log into WordPress, I’m not automatically logged into bbPress, I would have to log in separately.
Now, conversely, if I log into bbPress first, I’m not automatically logged into WordPress, but if I try to log into WordPress without logging out of bbPress, it won’t let me go in. The screen would still be the login screen… can anyone explain how to fix this?
I’m pretty sure it’s a problem regarding the cookies.
I also have the bbPress installed on a subdomain separate from the main domain where WordPress is hosted, I’ve done all the integration instructions mentioned by bbPress.org and also downloaded the integration Plugin for WordPress.
Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank You
P.S. If anyone knows the solution, would you also be able to know if if a similar problem would arise trying to integrate with BuddyPress as well? Thanks
I look forward to a static page for comparison on your graph.
It will prove what I am saying about content caching.
I have a test SMF install handy and I can see it uses less than a half-dozen queries on a 2nd page load which is a dead giveaway there is caching – I am sure every other 3rd gen forum package has it too. You have APC running and I know that SMF also takes advantage of that, so probably do others.
bbPress never got content caching because Matt keeps having the core re-invented every couple years (backpress and now as WP plugin) so we keep getting back to square one for advanced features. Don’t be confused by versions 0.9 is a different program than 1.0 and 1.2 is a completely different program than 1.0 or 0.9 (that’s Matt’s fault).
So I still insist this isn’t a fair comparison.
But bbPress 0.9 should be about halfway between the 1.x and other forum software (ie. 50% faster) 0.9 will be continued to developed independently, so it’s worth benchmarking.
If you are willing to put a couple of tweaks in the bb-config with 0.9 I think we can get a little closer to the rest of the pack at the bottom, ie.
$bb->load_options = true;
off the top of my head (note that does nothing in 1.0)
None of the software is serving data from a static page cache. Sure, they have various caching mechanisms, but all are retrieving their posts from the database on every page load, just as bbpress is.
I don’t have access to the server at the moment, but a based on my recollection (from accidental runs that resulted in 404 responses), it was able to handle several thousand requests per second to non-php based content, a magnitude more than any of the results I found. I’ll run a baseline tonight.
As for the previous post, I’d disagree. The majority of requests to a forum are going to be read requests, and they are the primary factor of site performance. If digg/slashdot/reddit links to your forum and the story becomes popular, the reads are going to kill your site, not the miniscule number of posts those guests will make.
I already know from my own benchmarks that 0.9 in many cases is 50% faster than 1.x, if only because it loads 50% less code, not to mention fewer queries out of the box.
But as nice of an ideas as it is, your benchmark really cannot compare apples to apples.
ALL the other forums you have listed already use a page cache, in part or whole, which is why they have such high numbers.
What your benchmark should do is attempt to DEFEAT any page caching the forum is doing by generating new posts BEFORE every page load.
ie. POST / READ / POST / READ / POST / READ / POST / READ
The next version of bbPress will very much need a page cache just like most buddypress sites desperately need as they are very sluggish (because of the WordPress core).
A few people have successfully deep integrated bbpress with wordpress and then used an exisiting wordpress page cache. That would give similar numbers to what you have posted for other forums.
actually i just integrated the forum to the old wordpress blog and it is back to normal. i guess i do want the old user table to be used for my new blog… can you point me in the direction of instructions on how to do that?
what happens to the new blogs user table?
tuluto, try logging out of WordPress and logging in through bbPress. Did it help?
You should have just linked the tables.
Are you saying that your original WP table is messed up?
If you have a backup, just restore that particular table and link the tables.
Linking tables mean telling the new WordPress to use a different user table.
Hi, I need to hire a bbpress developer who can create a plugin that allows someone to upload a thumbnail, for the topic. This will allow the user to upload a thumbnail after writing the topic. Once submitted.
The topics loop will also show a thumbnail of the topic next to the title etc etc.
So it becomes like an image board.
email me at sirwanqutbi @ gmail.com
I have a wordpress blog that integrates with bbpress well. I would like to integrate the bbpress with a different wordpress blog. The problem I had is that when I created the users in the new blog (I did manually b/c it seemed easiest with 40members) and then completed the integration it messed all the old forum posts up.
I assume that there is an identifier or id number in the user table that is used that got changed when I manually created the new user accounts?
How can I go about making this new blog integrate without losing the user to post relationship?
You mean when bbPress becomes a WordPress plugin? I don’t think there will be themes for bbPress at that point. More likely you would use a WordPress theme and could use a custom page template for forum pages, if you wanted.
But honestly, no one knows at this point. My feeling is that a lot of the overlapping functionality will be removed from bbPress once it becomes a WordPress plugin. No need for integration because you will already have access to WordPress functions. No need for themes because you will have access to all the WordPress theme functionality.
@ chrishajer
can i keep my bbpress theme with your mentioned plugin as it is, or does that mean i have to start over with my theme again?
thx
have you tried adding “bb-admin” to the end of your bbpress forum url? It might be that you’re using a custom bbpress theme that hasn’t got that option enabled on the theme.
try adding “bb-admin” and see if your wordpress login works.
just do two benchmarks from here. bbPress 1.0+ release and the legacy one 0.9
The next possible problem is a failure in the mapping of WP user roles to bbPress user roles in a user table integration — this kind of problem is a harder one, it may require doing some SQL to add the bbPress capabilities for a user. So I leave this for the serious experts here…
I thought I was doing great getting both the blog and the forum up today. However, I just can’t figure out how to add a link from my BBPress forum page to my WordPress Blog. I just want an easy way to go from forum to blog…
I’m a real newbie at this so please explain in great detail if it is complicated!
Thanks…
I’ve built a site to collect software benchmarks of various bulletin board software, found at http://bb-bench.com/ . I’m trying to setup boards under the exact same conditions – forums, topics, posts, users, to show how they scale under various forum loads, to provide users fair, quantifiable claims regarding performance. All of the boards are setup with their stock configuration options (with the exception of phpBB with HipHop for PHP, which I’ll admit to having an unfair advantage)
I would love your comments. What other combinations of forums/topics/posts/etc you would be interested in seeing? Any additional pages?
Additionally, since there are obviously optimisations that can be performed on any forum software, perhaps you can suggest some that might improve the results of bbPress.
Is it integrated with this WP blog?
http://www.nihaoedmonton.com/
If something isn’t correct in the WP integration settings, you are logged in bbPress if you are logged in WP, but a click on the “Admin” link on your forums (“Admin” in English, don’t know any word Chinese) will send you back to the forum’s front page.
A typical symptom of that problem is: After you clicked the link “Log Out” and made a new login in bbPress (not in WordPress), you can access the bbPress dashboard.
I just install bbPress. But I can not enter admin panel. Each time I login, I got into forum instead of admin panel.
http://www.nihaoedmonton.com/bbs
*Happy?*
Yap ! this time it’s working perfectly! 
Thanks a ton to both of you.
That means using this plugin, no html is supported at all on the topics?
Is it possible to improve this plugin a little bit as –
1. It will allow admin to post any clickable links(including outgoing) on the the topics
2. It will allow anyone to post clickable links ONLY when the link is from the same domain as the forum? (internal links)
To give an example, lets say this plugin is activated in bbpress.org.
A member post a topic saying
“Buy cheap Viagra from http://www.cheapest-vira-xyz.info” <– this link would be plain text.
“A member post a topic saying “Has any one got this working? https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/cant-switch-themes-in-081” <– this link would be clickable
again if any member post a topic saying “have you read this bbPress blog here ? https://www.bbpress.org/blog/latest/bla-bla-bla-bla” <– this link would be clickable as they are from the same domain as the forum
If the above functions can be implemented on this plugin, that would be a brilliant tool to put off most of the spammers.
Chrishajer! i need help… how do i hard code this file?..i dont have any coding experience this is my problem
damagegroup.com/wp1/forum
please help!
Thats cool!
Here is the link to legacy download counter in case anyone wondering – https://bbpress.org/download/counter/legacy
