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By tstermitz on
As Drupal becomes more complex and people write cool modules, we are hitting a wall on PHP Memory_Limit. I don't know whether Drupal is a memory hog by nature, module coders are inefficient with memory, or if they have errors in their code. Either way, coders need to pay attention to the issue.
Running Views, Imagecache and/or CivicCRM sends you way over php Memory_Limit = 50M, and it has nothing to do with size of the database. The problem is that shared hosts give you a hard limit between 12M and 50M, EVEN IF YOU SET php.ini to have memory_limit=128M.
I would also suggest this issue needs to get some attention from the shakers and movers in Drupal. I'll bet 90% of drupal websites are on shared host plans, and we don't want our growth to be stunted.
ANHosting gave me two answers: tech support said 20M, and sales said definitively 12M. These are very limits are for a service that claims to be good Drupal players.
Bluehost is at 50M. Now, I'm happy with Bluehost service, but a couple months ago it took me considerable pushing in tech support on the question only to get a denial. Yesterday, the tech support guy knew immediately that the limit was 50M, so something tells me they are getting this question a lot.
The hosting business is competitive, so if they want to keep drupal websites, I hope they respond with increased limits. I would certainly ask for greater transparency on the issue meaning that they should be upfront about their memory limits, and when rating Drupal hosts, the hard limit on php memory needs to be outed.
Comments
Good suggestion
I think this issue merits attention for all the reasons you stated.
However, people also need to realize that a Drupal site with all the bells and whistles enabled hosted on a bare bones shared account is asking for trouble. After all, low end shared accounts were designed for simple static sites, even if hosting providers tend to suggest otherwise. If you ask around, everyone in the Drupal community recommends a VPS with a minimum of 256 MB of memory for a serious site.
That said, I do host some sites at ANHosting under their unlimited everything plan for $7.95/month, and have never encountered the white screen of death after resetting my php memory limit in settings.php. Up to 96 MB work fine for me. I also have a couple of site at inhost.com under their $20/month plan and have been able to raise memory limits to something imagecache is happy with, generally 85 MB or better.
Just my 2 cts.
Christoph Weber - Pronovix
I wouldn't mind a shared+ plan, except...
$20/ month for a serious business or non-profit is certainly worth it for a CiviCRM operation.
$8/mo is a fine price for a personal website. I wouldn't mind paying $16 to get a step above regular shared hosting.
The problem I see coming is Drupal sites everywhere suddenly hitting the wall because most of them are at these low-budget, shared hosting sites. That is why I also questioned the developers about whether their code is clean.
Tom Stermitz, Denver Colorado
> That is why I also
> That is why I also questioned the developers about whether their code is clean.
Although that could be a factor (not all modules are created equal), I think it is mainly because people who don't know php are forced to install a new module for even the smallest of feature gains. In other words it may be the use of modules which is inefficient, rather than the modules themselves. For instance, Views2 is a huge module that nearly everyone uses. Yet how many of us use it for less than five views that would be a twentieth of the size and load of the module if they were hand scripted?
Sigh... I've got 32 modules installed just for basic functionality - nothing I would call a bell or whistle.
I wonder how much of my 384mb is being used?
A2's php memory limit is 128M
I'm looking around for a new webhost myself and am considering A2. According to Jack F. from A2's live chat their limit is set to 128M for the executive shared plan, which is $7.95/month.
No, i'm not an affiliate of A2. i'm not even a costumer. At least not yet.
Sounds good. But be aware
Sounds good. But be aware that when I was on a shared host, not only was I getting memory errors, but I also had 'SQL has gone away' errors, which I think is another separate resource issue that may not be solved by gaining more memory.
How to hand scripted?
Hi Anti
I did not know you can hand script what views gives. Can you explain this more or point me into documentation on how to do this.
Thank you
AN Hosting PHP Memory Limit
I've also never had a problem with RAM on AN Hosting.
Just create a file called php.ini in your public_html folder, and put this line in it:
memory_limit = 64M
You can set it to whatever you want, regardless of the default. Hope that helps anyone looking for answers.
I think as soon as you really
I think as soon as you really start to use 'heavy' modules or lots of them you need a VPS.
I don't think module writers can envision ALL the combinations of modules people make, it's often an 'after the fact' thought. And if you know/learn some php you can avoid a lot of module bloat.
Shared hosts aren't meant for than, on shared hosts you can comfortably host a site that is mostly intended for anonymous users (using the boost module). For 'social' sites, you'll be better off with a VPS.
And these days there is no price difference, linode offers unmanaged vps with 360 mb memory for $19,99, and if you do a google search you can find an (unmanaged) xen vps with up to 512mb for as low as $6, but around $10/month is more typical.
So it's just a matter of searching, if you can't manage your own server then you'll need a managed one, prices hover/start around $40 a month.
You pay for what you get. For
You pay for what you get. For the shared web hosting, you will usually be provided with very limited memory, especially for those which charge you less than $10/month.
If you need more memory, I would like recommend you to go with VPS, which you can much more memory than a shared one.
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Want to setup a Drupal site, find the Best Drupal Hosting for it now.
I usually set my drupal
I usually set my drupal memory limit to 96M to avoid problems. I believe Dreamhost allows you to set it to 90M and they were my preferred shared host for a while. I've since realized that if you want a site with any type of traffic, shared hosting is not going to do it for you. On dreamhost, it really depends what server you end up on. I have a website which run beautifully on dreamhost and it's my most bloated one, but the other day I was setting up a simple ubercart site and it couldn't even run with out traffic.
I've since moved to VPS's at Linode and am much happier. I am having to run Drupal under NGINX instead of apache to save memory for Drupal....so not only should coder be aware of memory limits of Drupal, but they should be aware that on VPS especially, people will most likely not be using Apache. Filefield for instance, progress bar will not work with out apache.
Now keep in mind, I don't host any of these sites myself, they are for my clients. The cheaper hosting, the better. What the Drupal community really needs is a decent shared host specifically for Drupal sites. Something with fast on server database access, apache serving PHP and something like NGINX serving static requests and optimally configured for Drupal.
Drupal does take a lot of memory and I've yet to find out in a real world scenario how well it will scale...but the more I use it, the more I worry if I'll be able to continue to find cheap, reliable hosting for my clients sites.
Custom PHP.INI ?
A lot of hosts are starting to use suphp, which allows you to get your own custom php.ini. Just add the line:
memory_limit = XXMAnd you should be fine!
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See the best drupal hosting providers on the Internet.
Hi there Have just hit the
Hi there
Have just hit the PHP Memory wall with Hostgator and they refuse to raise limit from 64M to 96M.
Could we have a nit more info on how/where this code goes?
Thanks!
Stan
Is there a way to tell how
Is there a way to tell how much php memory that you're using on a XAMPP locally run dev install?
In order to plan in advance, I mean...
I agree is a serious issue
I agree PHP memory limit is a serious issue with Drupal. Memory limits needs to be stated more clearly on what is needed. I have been learning drupal and creating my first site. Went to release on my hosting site and just to find out that limit is 32M. Everywhere I read about Drupal it that Views2 and imagecache are necessary modules for developing in Drupal. But no were was it statement that php memory limit would be an issue. For someone just starting with Drupal and wanting to use it. This php memory limit needs to be clear statement for modules. That way developers of a website can make an informed decision before designing and developing a whole site, just to blind side by usage. I had know idea about this php memory limit when I was researching hosting companies for my sites. Again if information was clearly statement one could make a informed decision. Do not get me wrong I like Drupal and plan to stay with it. We just need to be up front about the memory usage. So, can anyone explain or point to documentation on what this php memory is and how is allocated and used. I like to understand it much better. Also, how to determine what is using the memory?
Thanks you.
Agreed, Didn't Know about Memory Limits
I've had a similar experience. I've been using Drupal for a few years now, using Indichosts.net as my host. I have their Power User account ($6.99 month). The first couple of years, as I was learning Drupal, I only had simplistic websites and memory limits were only an occasional annoyance. Now, as I'm planning to make more in-depth websites using Ubercart, I'm running into the Memory limit issue. My host never told me what the memory limit was. In using the Devel module I was able to find that the memory limit is set at 32M. I'm also helping my sister develop some websites for her counseling practice. After using the using the Power User account for a couple years, I'm helping her change to the ECommerce account ($14 month). An sale rep told me that the eCommerce account has 32M, while another support rep told me that the eCommerce site would handle the Ubercart, etc. Since my sister now has the eCommerce account, I checked and found that the website located in the files root section has 128M and any website in a subfolder has 32M (curious).
Anyway, since Ubercart won't run on my account with 32M, I installed Xampp on my home computer and set the memory limit to 128M. This allows me to play around with and learn Ubercart before spending on a more expensive website account.
I'm still looking around for website hosting options. Once I learn Ubercart better, I may want to move to another host.
Stephen
Anhosting gave me the
Anhosting gave me the standard answer with 12MB, but so far I've raised it to 128 with tweaks, don't know for how long they'll tollerate that though.
An Hosting Addon domains and PHP Memory Limit
Hi
I have a standard AN Hosting package and have installed my main Drupal site, and second Drupal site as an addon domain. I have just tried adding a 3rd Drupal site as another addon domain ( yes I am a cheapskate ) and imagecache has thrown a wobbly saying "Allowed memory size of 50331648 bytes exhausted".
It hadn't occured to me before but will each Drupal site I install as an addon domain eat into a single PHP memory allocation ?
Any advice ?
Cheers
Dave
Memory isn't shared between
Memory isn't shared between sites. You just need to put a custom php.ini file in each addon domain folder, so if your new domain is in
/public_html/somewebsite/put it in there.The file just needs one line:
memory_limit = 64M
You can change that number as needed.
I had a bug in the Gallery2
I had a bug in the Gallery2 module which started duplicating menu items A LOT. This caused a white screen when I went to try to edit menus. Everything else worked. I tracked it down to PHP memory limit. It was at 128M but that wasn't enough to handle this bug. Changed to 196M and all worked. After fixing the bug, I changed it back. I run my own server and have full control. If I had been on a shared server could I have located and fixed this problem? I think not without some customer 'service' headaches I think.
So at what point does increasing the available PHP memory start impacting the system memory?
If your Drupal site need
If your Drupal site need higher memory, you really need to go with VPS or dedicated server hosting. Shared hosting is only an appropriate choice if your site is mainly comprised of articles, or some image (but not using Gallery2 or the modules need to resize a file as which those module usually have much higher need on memory).
So what hosts out there have a larger php memory limit??
I have a thread here that might be of interest regarding trying to find a host that allows php.ini tweaking. (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=929411)
Bottom line for me is that I think I can be perfectly happy using Drupal on a shared host, as long as the shared host has a default of 64mb or more.
The only trouble is (and I am agreeing to the very first post here) is that finding out which hosts allow it is very tough.
I was trying to find a hosting company that owned its own data center, so Ubiquity and Serverpoint were two top contenders, but both said that I would not be allowed to change php.ini within my own directories. I wonder...if I did do it would they know?
iWeb and AN Hosting say they do allow it.
can we perhaps get a list going of some of the more Drupal friendly hosting companies, and what their default php memory and php.ini policy is?? I think the best way to get this to change is to start measuring it. Once vendors see a list out there, they will want to be on it.
Most of Shared hosting only
Most of Shared hosting only charge you less than $10/month, in order to be profitable, they usually host more than 1000 domain in one server. If they only have very few customers using Drupal, then they probably is ok to increase memory in php.ini for you.
But if they open this door and attract Drupal webmaster to be their customers, their server will soon become overloaded, and they will have to start thinking about limiting the memory you can use.
So, it would be very hard to find this type of shared hosting for Drupal in long run. VPS and Dedicated server will be recommended if you need a lot of memory. And for shared hosting, you can host some drupal sites with limited needs on memory (such as you don't use image-cache module).
Let's get down to Drupal business
The question should not be if people should get a more expensive host, that's absurd. It also shouldn't be about requiring more memory or ram, dedicated server etc. Wordpress requires none of these things and flies on even the cheapest host, it takes 50+ Drupal modules to do what Wordpress does so easily with only a few plugins. Let's get real, Drupal needs to thin out and be less resource intensive if it hopes to gain any real consideration.
I have 128m and done all the database tweaks and still have issues, none of which I ever experienced with Wordpress.
I've seen the most sophisticated complexed websites being made with simple Wordpress, so the age old issue of Wordpress as only a blogging tool are over, it's as good a CMS as Drupal only with less hassle and issues. Drupal needs to be 100% on a shared hosting, that's all there is to it.
The difference between a Drupal site owner and a Wordpress site owner
- The Drupal site owner spends most of their time administering the site, troubleshooting and worrying about what module is going to bite the dust next bringing the entire site down.
- The Wordpress site owner spends most of their time writing about their passions and enjoying the extra free time from having to monitor their site 24/7 for daily database issues.
I think we all know where Drupal stands, it clearly is made for the developer market, that's why more and more Drupal users are jumping ship for Wordpress.
Drupal has the complete package, it's flexible and powerful, blah blah, it's all good, the problem is they keep expanding it instead of simplifying the user interface and improving the performance. I'm up to 75+ modules to do simple things that Wordpress could easily do. It takes over a minute just to load the module page.
True D7 seems an improvement over D6 but only minor from what I can tell so far.
If you need to have a dedicated server to host a CMS then you are doing it all wrong. Shared Hosting is what the majority of users are on, Wordpress gets this, when will Drupal ?
Ok now, let's here all the whiny developers rip me a new one he he
> I've seen the most
> I've seen the most sophisticated complexed websites being made with simple Wordpress
I've been hearing this more and more over the last year. So I got a plugin for firefox called 'wappalyzer' recently. Every time I come across a website that I really like, I check out which script it's using.
Guess what - almost no drupal sites. But there seems to be a 50/50 chance that the great site I'm looking at has either been custom scripted or it is wordpress.
The really amazing thing is that many times I think a site is going to be custom before clicking wappalyzer, and I'm totally stunned that it actually turns out to be wordpress. This experience totally flies in the face of what is constantly written in the Drupal forums and in reviews/comparisons.
I dont know much about WP, i
I dont know much about WP, i guess most ppl would agree drupal is more powerful but its has many problems.
Like hundred of modules for some basic stuff that are web standards, so many modules, its hard to keep track and i remeber some very useful modules after some months as i just forgot i put this module on some other site. Also its all very unpolished, but seems it gets better. In the end its all about spent time for quality, doesnt mean much for dev if i can make more powerful stuff if i have to spend much more time learning and investigating. If someone using WP can put up 10 sites while i put one in drupal WP is better :-) Also this looks to me like amiga vs atari in late 80s when atari was powerful but amiga had better graphics, nicer layout etc and guess who won :-) then again they are both histroy long time ago so... :-)
Adriadrop Drupal development
Need more php mem... search
Need more php mem... search for dolphin compatible hosts. 128mb is the min. for dolphin.
Comparing apples to apples?
I started learning drupal for my startup idea. Having seen this comment, I wanted to revisit my selection of CMS software. I will look into this a bit more, yet, looking at the major sites using Wordpress and Drupal, I can see that Drupal is more widely accepted by major institutions. Also majority of sites built with Wordpress are Blogs - according to their site.
If you are building a high traffic, complicated site, you would need to provide more resources it deserves. If you are building a simple site, you should be fine with low resources. That's what the issue is I believe. Also, simplicity is good but at times it is limiting. From that perspective I am one of the guys who would spend additional hours to learn Drupal rather than finding out I can't do this, I can't do that down the road..
Anyone to challenge this view would be more than welcome since I'd like to give the right decision now.
Cheers!
Expecting Drupal users to run
Expecting Drupal users to run out and get a VPS is absurd, as someone here stated, most users are on a shared hosting plan. A VPS is way more expensive so it's out of the question. Drupal needs to be shared hosting friendly that's all there is to it. Wordpress is imagine that, it's possible. Look at it from not a developer point of view which unfortunately is the norm in regards to Drupal. Funny how Drupal keeps getting more complexed while Wordpress keeps getting more simpler, which one do you think most users would prefer. In the world of content management, the focus should be about simplifying the process not making it more difficult.
Scalability
Yes, it is very desirable to have scalability.
Yet, revisiting my decisions, in order to host my site in a secure manner and in order not to hit the wall in case my dreams come true and I draw serious traffic to my site, I believe I need a VPS anyway...
Cheers!
Nothing is absurd if that's
Nothing is absurd if that's the answer. What's absurd is actually the expectation.
I would love to have everything work on a shared hosting platform, too, and have it cost $1 per year, and have someone else actually create my site for me, but I'll be waiting forever instead of working with things as they currently are.
While you're frustrations are certainly justified, as my own were, too - Wordpress has severe limitations that anyone wanting more than a flashy blog sure might not want to have.
A Wordpress install and a Drupal install of the same weight and function should both be able to work fine on a shared hosting account, if Drupal is tuned right.
But the second you want a business-class site, with thousands of visitors and lots of "real" web site functionality, you're going to come to a decision point sooner than later. Sure, you can haul lots of material in a Volkswagon Beetle, but if you want more you'll have to get a truck.
And it know, it sucks for me, too - trucks cost more. But I don't know how to get around that, so my $50 per month VPS pays for itself in mere minutes for what it does. However, if I only wanted a blog or something simple, I don't see why shared hosting wouldn't work as well for similar functionality for a Wordpress blog.
But yes, there are things that happen where requirements and expectations outgrow the resources ability to handle them. When that happens, there are only two choices - upgrade or lower your expectations.
Both can be painful. (I know this too well.)
What you said makes sense of
What you said makes sense of course from a Drupal Development standpoint, but what do you call all those mega large Wordpress sites with thousands of users working just fine, exception to the rule ?
I'm not evangelizing Wordpress but I get tired of hearing people call it a simple blog tool or if you want something simple just use Wordpress. That may have been the case many years ago but no longer is it today.
Wordpress can handle anything Drupal can, these big Wordpress sites prove it. There are also many great CMS plugins to turn Wordpress into a fully functional CMS. I think sometimes the Drupal propaganda spreads too thick saying if you want something more you should use Drupal.
I have yet to find anything Wordpress can not handle and in many areas it handles it much better than Drupal. Drupal can't even handle a simple task like creating a blog that matches the high standard of a Wordpress blog something so powerful and it can't even do that.
VPS is fine for businesses but for most web users, it's not, no matter how you slice it. You would have to simply say Drupal is not for 95% of the internet, yeah that makes perfect sense.
The most common problem I see
The most common problem I see is that feature creep; " I'm up to 75+ modules to do simple things that Wordpress could easily do.".
Drupal does not provide the same features by default, neither the same interface. I very often see people installing loads of modules, each one of them getting them closer to "something that Wordpress does", while not realizing that many of these modules, while adding the small interface tweak or usability feature they could have on Wordpress by default, are not just doing that and add a much larger footprint than expected.
Drupal has its own interface and workflow; while the Drupal community is working on improving both of them, don't be surprised if your install starts eating up loads of memory after taming it into behaving "like Wordpress does".
I don't think there is an issue in chosing Wordpress over Drupal for some things; Drupal, while being extremely flexible, can not answer all users. If you chose Drupal over Wordpress, you must have requirements that are not a good fit for Wordpress; learn to deal with Drupal way of doing things.