Maximum hits/per minute or second
This question was recently posed one of my favorite websites (LassoSoft). Since I’m not a paid certified developer I was unable to respond – so I’ll do it here.
“Does anyone have numbers for what maximum hits have been recorded for FileMaker databases through the web? Whether PHP or any other technology, or at least what can be expected (given the best possible hardware setup)?“
My answer is that this can very/depend greatly base of hardware, type of request, etc. We run a website (www.ecodingnow.com) on a MacMini. Our server has between 10,000 and 15,000 requests an hour. Our database is hosted on the same machine as the web server (which can significantly reduce performance). Our processor rarely rises about 5 to 7%. Our searches are simple. The type of data returned in a query is simple (again another factor in speed). Because FileMaker is a single threaded database if you’re serving large images (container field kind of data) out of the system you can slow down the database down. Keep the data simple. I recommend SuperContainer by 360Works to do those type of tasks (images/files). Apache is multi threaded so it doesn’t get hung up on those type of tasks. Lastly, the number of records being queried can also effect speed. Our tables contain between 75,000 to 150,000 records (no issue for speed). I have done a database that has about 2 million records in the tables – speed was greatly reduced.
PHP vs Lasso. Overall, I’d say use Lasso if you can afford it (There are some good hosts so you don’t have to pay for a license.). Overall speed and functionality for FileMaker as a web database Lasso wins. PHP is a good option just not as robust.
Overall, if done right I think you could serve millions of queries a day on FileMaker. Most jobs FileMaker does very well. If you use Lasso it is fairly easy to port your data to MySQL or a other SQL database. Contrary to what many will tell you – FileMaker is a great web database if done right.
