I've just installed all three tests on a Prometeus VZSSD5 (2 core, 512 MB ram, SSD) to find out what is the performance of each forum. I'm using a standard Minstall setup, what means nginx + php-fpm + apc + mysql no-innodb.
Here are the findings (all of them stock configuration).
The command I used was siege -c100 -t 5s forum.example.com
Vanilla (github/stable)
-c100
Transactions: 122 hits Availability: 100.00 % Elapsed time: 4.62 secs Data transferred: 0.25 MB Response time: 1.94 secs Transaction rate: 26.41 trans/sec Throughput: 0.05 MB/sec Concurrency: 51.26 Successful transactions: 122 Failed transactions: 0 Longest transaction: 3.53 Shortest transaction: 0.13
-c200
Transactions: 120 hits Availability: 27.84 % Elapsed time: 4.20 secs Data transferred: 0.30 MB Response time: 2.03 secs Transaction rate: 28.57 trans/sec Throughput: 0.07 MB/sec Concurrency: 57.94 Successful transactions: 120 Failed transactions: 311 Longest transaction: 3.27 Shortest transaction: 0.01
MyBB
-c100
Transactions: 649 hits Availability: 100.00 % Elapsed time: 4.93 secs Data transferred: 1.94 MB Response time: 0.25 secs Transaction rate: 131.64 trans/sec Throughput: 0.39 MB/sec Concurrency: 32.59 Successful transactions: 649 Failed transactions: 0 Longest transaction: 0.40 Shortest transaction: 0.03
-c200
Transactions: 673 hits Availability: 96.70 % Elapsed time: 4.79 secs Data transferred: 2.01 MB Response time: 0.73 secs Transaction rate: 140.50 trans/sec Throughput: 0.42 MB/sec Concurrency: 103.14 Successful transactions: 673 Failed transactions: 23 Longest transaction: 1.00 Shortest transaction: 0.01
FluxBB -c100
Transactions: 937 hits Availability: 100.00 % Elapsed time: 4.85 secs Data transferred: 1.41 MB Response time: 0.04 secs Transaction rate: 193.20 trans/sec Throughput: 0.29 MB/sec Concurrency: 8.09 Successful transactions: 937 Failed transactions: 0 Longest transaction: 0.14 Shortest transaction: 0.01
-c200
Transactions: 1576 hits Availability: 100.00 % Elapsed time: 4.94 secs Data transferred: 2.37 MB Response time: 0.08 secs Transaction rate: 319.03 trans/sec Throughput: 0.48 MB/sec Concurrency: 25.23 Successful transactions: 1576 Failed transactions: 0 Longest transaction: 0.26 Shortest transaction: 0.01
So the result is that no matter how much I'd like to use Vanilla, FluxBB has 10x the performance of Vanilla, under heavy load.
What surprises me is that how is is possible that this site uses Vanilla? Did you implement some crazy nginx microcache or Varnish solution? How do you know what pages should be cached and what should be rendered?
