After reading this thread: http://drupal.org/node/653556 ("Performance Issues"), I think it's important that we get as much info from users as possible regarding the scalability of chatroom in various types of setup.

Chatroom, phpfreechat, and irc-setups all have their own separate benefits, but one of the things which must be weighed carefully is expected number of concurrent users and the scalability of the app. So far I haven't seen any reports from chatroom or phpfreechat re. the number of concurrent users.

One thought for those with scalability problems and a large number of modules: You could create a fresh install of Drupal on a subdomain with user tables shared and only the modules activated for the bare essentials, and then embed the chatrooms via an iframe - this way you would still have control over users and be able to determine permissions, which is the main reason for using Drupal chat instead of irc or a third party flash chat service.

Comments

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

i'd be happy to see this, but - chatroom module explicitly makes a decision to favour tight integration over performance. if you have APC and small rooms, you should be ok, but if you need large rooms, this is simply not the module for you.

i'm currently dabbling with a node.js powered alternative, so we can get tight integration and great performance, but its a long way off, and will require a separate service.

jmcoder’s picture

jmcoder commented

Thanks so much for the quick reply, justinrandell, and your brilliant work on this challenging module.

I guess part of the question here is, how small is a small room? People in different contexts might have different ideas of what small is - 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 180, 320 etc..

I look forward to hearing how people are using this, and what number of users they tend to have - I suppose it would be good to know also the total concurrent users on the site, as well as the number of users in a single chat room.

tormi’s picture

tormi
Primary language Estonian
Location Tallinn
commented

I'm using AJAX Chat (http://blueimp.net/ajax/) nowadays. I integrated it with Drupal so that it's using Drupal's users, roles and sessions via DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_SESSION and that combo is working just fine with up to ca 20 concurrent users (that seems to be the limit). Chat is on a subdomain of Drupal-based main site.

AJAX Chat integration howto's: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ajax-chat/index.php?title=Integrat...

Tormi

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented
Status: Active » Closed (fixed)

please take this discussion to the forums.