PrestaShop with 2M products

[Xavier du Tertre]

[sPLIT TOPIC FROM GERMAN FORUM]

 

Original thread is on the German forum, here. Original question is basically: "can one build a 2M-product online store with PrestaShop?"

 

--------------------

Hi! Sorry if I don't reply in German... trust me, it's better for everyone

 

Can a shop with 2M products run on PrestaShop? Yes.

Is it something that can be done by anyone? I'd say that you would have to be experienced. And the hardware definitely has to be top-notch, especially for the database.

 

We ran a PrestaShop with 1M products and that went very well! If you launch your 2M-product-store project, we'll be very happy to hear from you and follow your achievements.

 

Good luck!

[tuk66]

Hi! Sorry if I don't reply in German... trust me, it's better for everyone

 

Can a shop with 2M products run on PrestaShop? Yes.

Is it something that can be done by anyone? I'd say that you would have to be experienced. And the hardware definitely has to be top-notch, especially for the database.

 

We ran a PrestaShop with 1M products and that went very well! If you launch your 2M-product-store project, we'll be very happy to hear from you and follow your achievements.

 

Good luck!

Xavier, sollten Sie sagen, die volle Wahrheit Wie viel Speicher Ihre PHP, welche Version von PrestaShop Sie verwenden müsste, und wenn Sie es gepatcht. Ich habe versucht, ein Geschäft mit 100k Produkte auf v1.4 und 2 GB RAM auf VPS ist so-so.

 

Xavier, you should say the full truth How much memory takes your PHP, which version of PrestaShop do you use and if you patched it. I tried a shop with 100k products on v1.4 and 3GB of RAM on VPS is so-so.

Edited July 25, 2013 by tuk66 (see edit history)

[Xavier du Tertre]

It was on a PrestaShop 1.4 out of the box (not patched) running on 3 servers (each around 8GB memory).

 

Having an average speed on a 100K products store with a 3GB RAM VPS seems normal, you should upgrade your hosing services... That's my opinion

[guest*]

OK, but PS 1.4. IS NOT PS 1.5. and here definitely a special server is required. The more combinations you have, the bigger the space should be. PS runs under 1.4. every where with 2.000 products, more than this you must make special adaptations on your server. This was the final verdict of Big Boss on my own website with 20.000 products.

[benjamin utterback]

Hi Conny, thanks for sharing your experiences. If you want to use 1.5 with 20,000 products then you can. The question is not in the software but in the database and server. We have users who purchase the Support Plan with over 10,000 products on 1.5. You may prefer 1.4 or 1.5 for your store but that does not mean that a user can not elect to choose 1.5 with that many products.

 

The main idea that I want everybody to really get out of this, is that PrestaShop is faster than any other solution you might use out of the box, I don't want people on this forum to think otherwise. If you plan to use 1.5 with over 5,000 products the main suggestion I have is to split categories up. If one category has 2,000 products then it will obviously load slower than if your split them up.

[tuk66]

... The question is not in the software but in the database and server ...

I don't agree. The question is in the software at the first place. For example, search indexing is SO inefficient and memory and time-consuming that you can't run PrestaShop without huge memory (at least v1.4 but I am not sure that v1.5 is much better).

[benjamin utterback]

Hi tuk66, thanks for your feedback. Do you have any suggestions to make it more efficient, as an Open-Source software, we love to hear different ways to make our software better for our users. Software indexing in general is time consuming and memory intensive and we work hard to try and make the process as best as possible. That is not to say PrestaShop is perfect, but we are all doing our best. We have always been proactive on implementing our users suggestions and feedback and that's clear in our Github page. We can all work together to better the solution.

[Dh42]

Please excuse my use of english on this thread.

 

Connie,

Prestashop can run 20,000 products on a single server without having a database server. It all depends on configuration. Does it take more memory? Of course it does, any time you want more of something it will take more memory or more disk space. Here are some suggestions I would make.

 

I am guessing your database is 1-2 gb's, maybe more depending on your traffic and how often you clear your ps_connections table. If you have a high traffic website that has a lot of sales, I would recommend not using any of the Prestashop stats. The main reason being is anytime you use more features they require more memory. The stats are good for small shops, but bigger shops should be out putting everything to quickbooks or something similar. The reason being is because Prestashop is not accounting software, it cannot handle you business accounting as well as accounting software. So turn them off and output to an accounting package. Also off load the user stats to google analytics or something like pickwik. You will get much more detailed information while keeping your main database overhead low. If you run pickwik or another hosted analytics, I would do it from another server personally.

 

Instead of running a dedicated database server, keep your database pruned. That means delete old carts after a month or two, delete your connections, delete products that you will never have in stock again. Things like that. Mysql is good, but it is a fact that a smaller database will run quicker. Cache your whole database to memory. If you keep your database pruned to say 2-3gb, I would allocate 4gb of memory to sql for caching. So that the whole database is cached to memory.

 

You are running an opcode cache, which I highly recommend. I would just check it and make sure that you have enough dedicated memory to it, which depends on your modules. 128-256 is usually enough, Prestashop does not have too many compiled files.

 

Run a reverse http proxy. Something like varnish if you are using apache. Set varnish up to cache images, js files, and css files. Or if you are on nginx, set it up similar.

 

Cut down on http requests. This is a no brainer, combine everything you can so that your site has as few as possible, they take server processing power to pull off.

 

Don't use memcache, using an opcode cache, I would image that you already are not using memcache, so good. Memcache is slower since it feeds through the server and makes a tcp request and a round trip.

 

If you follow all of this correctly, you will be loading your whole site from memory, which will speed it up a lot and cut out any disk requests which are inherently slow.

 

One other thing I would recommend that will speed the site up to is caching mysql queries. This is harder to pull of and have done correctly. There is a module for it that works great, but you an do it on your own as well.

 

Last thing I would recommend is running your compiled folder from memory. The way this is done is a bit tricky, you will have to increase your apc memory usage. What it does is instead of compiling to the compiled directory, it compiles directly to memory. You can read more about the plugin here, http://www.smarty.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16809

 

Gandish,

 

2 million products is a lot. If you run in 1 language, you are talking about 4 million database rows for products. Double that for every language that you are running. If you do everything that I mentioned for Conny, you should be in good shape. You just have to realize with any platform, the more of anything you want has a cost. It costs memory and resources. That is how everything works.

[guest*]

Dh42 - I don't want to blow up, because in German Forum the language should be German. I'm running on a network of several servers working together, and still using opcode cache, so I don't have any problems on my shop. My answer is only directed to the question that Prestashop for shops with more than 2.000 products should be hosted on a special optimized webspace and it is not possible to run on a 5 $/month space, which is the major problem of MOST users in German Forum. Here the mentality is "stinginess is cool".

[benjamin utterback]

I'm sorry Conny about the language. I can split the posts and make a new topic in the English Forum because this is a interesting discussion.

 

I wonder what specifications those 5 dollar servers are? Are they paid month to month? As you know, you get what you pay for and being stingy with your server is fine, just make sure to not expect to much.

 

We have a 1.5 store with about 2500 products on A2 Hostings Prime+SSD hosting for about $7.50 a month and it runs fine. Our support team had to multiply the categories because it was taking too long to each category with about 1000 products+ but after that, it ran fine.

[guest*]

We all know that US.-servers are cheap, but in respect, surely not a real option for European sites, because of the long way and several back-bones you are trespassing by loosing speed. There are several good options in Germany for hosting (also with SSD), but the price is higher. Users should choose what they prefer...

 

Best option is to host in the country from where or in where you are operating. The second problem you must consider, is that most of the German User's have language problem (no English). So a foreign host is not possible too.

[benjamin utterback]

Yes, that makes sense. However, many of the US hosts also have Server stations in Europe. I want to find a viable solution to use all the great features in 1.5 with a low cost server. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that those entry level servers are really "Ecommerce Ready". Aren't they more meant for blogs or less intensive websites?

[eleazar]

Hi Ben,

I really suggest to follow your proposal to cut this out and move it to the English forum.

Not only because the common language here is German. But also because of the facts that

- webspace isn't very expensive in Germany

- in Germany we are far away from shops of that range

 

Regards

Rainer

Edited July 29, 2013 by Xavier du Tertre (see edit history)

[Dh42]

I will point this out to Ben to move Monday morning. I would just like to validate why I wrote in english, a loose quote from tomerg3 sums it up "technical things do not translate correctly" PHP, MYSQL, Apache, Varnish, APC, Zend, and the rest of the technologies I mentioned are maintained in English, so when referring them and their specifics English is the best language. I will send Ben a pm in a minute about this thread reminding him to do whatever he was going to do with it.

[eleazar]

Really, I know this is important and I appreciate ur sophisticated statement. So please don't get me wrong. But it's a fact that a lot of users of the German forum aren't skilled enough in English.