Disadvantages and advantages of database based website

Lauj

I have created a website mostly dependent on MySQL database. What are the disadvantages? Will MySQL be able to serve about 100 to 500 users concurrently? I guess that is my main concern. Will a website based on database be slower or faster than a more traditional webesite where it is maily based on individual files?

TobyRT

The thought occurs that perhaps you should have thought about this BEFORE you built your site using MySQL 🙂

That said, as far as I'm aware if the DB is properly normalised, your syntax clean, and your hardware good, that level of concurrency shouldn't be a problem.

As for speed, I honestly don't know, but if you've got a lot of files that need updating regularly, a db is the way to go!

_RL_Ian

I would say that a database driven website, regardless of the speed, would be MUCH easier to manage if you are dealing with that many users. Anyway, who makes a website without a database these days? lol 🙂

Lauj

Thank you for all your responses. The reason I was thinking of going database is because I can allow the users or whoever is responsible for a section of the website the ability to change the content or create new pages using a default template without knowing any web programming language. I'll just create an interface where the user will just change the texts and that is it. But my concern is that what if there is a lot of people downloading the same information from the database server. Will this cause a slow response from the database or perhaps crash the DB server.

_RL_Ian

Lauj wrote:
Thank you for all your responses. The reason I was thinking of going database is because I can allow the users or whoever is responsible for a section of the website the ability to change the content or create new pages using a default template without knowing any web programming language. I'll just create an interface where the user will just change the texts and that is it. But my concern is that what if there is a lot of people downloading the same information from the database server. Will this cause a slow response from the database or perhaps crash the DB server.

"A lot" is pretty relative. The bigger you get, the better server you need to run it. Dual Processors and a lot of memory really help speed up applications

Lauj

I'm in charge of our web server so I'm not sure of the hardware specs but I'm positive that is quite decent since it serves the whole university.

When I say 100-500 concurrent users is a range I like to cover. Reaslistically, I'm guessing the maximum users using concurrently will about about 100-200. So with that said, I should be okay, right?

Well, thanks for all your remarks.

_RL_Ian

I'm sure you'll be fine. There are some mysql websites that have thousands of active users at a time. If you code correctly you can scale easily.