Please upgrade here. These earlier versions are no longer being updated and have security issues.
HackerOne users: Testing against this community violates our program's Terms of Service and will result in your bounty being denied.

How many active plugins is too much?

422422 Developer MVP
edited July 2012 in Vanilla 2.0 - 2.8

Had a nice email off a vanilla user earlier, but one thing got me concerned.

"i have about 30 plugins active"

Personally, i run approx 2 at most 4 plugins per forum i use, so what are your thoughts ?

There was an error rendering this rich post.

Comments

  • Probably the simple answer is when you see a performance hit, don't you think?

    Also, probably depends on the plugin - whether it reads or writes to a database or simply manipulates some php code or does intensive jqueries. I know you wanted probably want a vanilla team answer, but thats my thoughts.

    One badly written plugin or database intensive plugin could probably have more impact than 30 well-written non-database intensive plugins.

    Same with themes too.

    I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.

  • 422422 Developer MVP

    Just intereted to see how many plugins people use, but yep performance issues are a given

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • SheilaSheila ✭✭

    ^ 17 and these all are somewhat cherry picked after testing and time. Some make usability better, several others extend forum features ('Quotes', 'Last edited', 'Split / Merge FE'). So not even sure, if I could give up many.
    Haven't much noticed any performance issues. With the plugins I'm using, only 'I like This' and 'Who's Online' use database.

    This is a great topic! I am really interested of hearing, since do not understand much the coding part, how much does it matter, if something is done within the core versus with addon.

  • fh111fh111 Vanilla Padawan ✭✭

    in our community we have 32 active plugins and everything is running smooth. they add a lot to the functionality and usability of the forum and make me as forum manager as well as the users happy

    i don't see why many plugins should be of concern.

  • TimTim Operations Vanilla Staff

    There is obviously the potential for performance issues, but at the end of the day, just like @peregrine said, you shouldn't think of it as "number of plugins", but more along the lines of "what kind of plugins". DB access is a huge one, as is filesystem scanning/trawling. Plugins that just hook and output are of minimal concern.

    Vanilla Forums COO [GitHub, Twitter, About.me]

  • phreakphreak Vanilla*APP (White Label) & Vanilla*Skins Shop MVP

    Agree, i'm also running several plugins and till now it's no problem. Get a grip of how fast your forum renders by playing around with Firebug, Chromes Javascript-Konsole and Google Page Speed. Some decent benchmark tools for checking your server config/hoster and database speed also gives you insights on your board but needs a little more experience.

    • VanillaAPP | iOS & Android App for Vanilla - White label app for Vanilla Forums OS
    • VanillaSkins | Plugins, Themes, Graphics and Custom Development for Vanilla
Sign In or Register to comment.