Site performance issues

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I have just started using c5 for simple client sites, at an Aussie web development house. I am used to using more complex systems for many sites, including Joomla!, Digishop, Drupal, full custom CMS etc. We have a long established relationship with a reputable hosting company here in Australia (NetRegistry), and in all my time working with various CMSs with this hosting provider, I have never encountered a CMS as slow as c5. It is regularly taking 10-20 seconds to load pages, and these are simple pages - some global blocks and a content area. No custom blocks, no add-in blocks, not parsing CSS etc. And this is all with version 5.4.1.

Even if I enable cache, it still takes 3-5 seconds to render a simple page. Unfortunately, APC is not an option with this host, and I am waiting to hear back about other optimization options. Interestingly I have never needed to enquire about APC for the various other CMSs we have used. Regardless, can anyone explain WHY c5 is so much slower than other CMSs? Is it the Zend Framework? Is it possible that the Zeus webserver used on these accounts is a factor?

I am really enjoying working with c5, the paradigm works. However the speed difference is very noticeable, and might just be a deal breaker.

 
12345j replied on at Permalink Reply
12345j
http://andrewembler.com/concrete5/5-easy-ways-to-speed-up-a-concrete5-site/
mwotton replied on at Permalink Reply
Thanks, I saw that previously and have applied all I can before making this thread. As I mentioned, I have no custom block types, I have included the CSS rather than have it parsed, and I am checking the optimization options.

Since I am not including any custom code, the API calls are irrelevent. The custom templates I have built are VERY simple. Between 4 and 7 areas, and only one of them has any conditional logic, but this does not seem to be making that template any slower. jQuery is required but all this is irrelevent.

I have been watching the timelines during a page request, using Firebug and Google developer tools. As an example, one simple request (to this page:http://www.erinachamber.com.au/index.php/about/... ) took 7.16 seconds. Of this 6.53 seconds was waiting for the document, and only 623ms loading a total of 22 images. Scripts and CSS took only 1ms each.
jbx replied on at Permalink Reply
jbx
Hey, you're right, that page is loading very slowly - however, I don't think it is as simple as saying that it is C5 that is the issue. I run a few C5 sites on very basic servers and still get complete page loads in well under a second without much optimizing. I haven't found it to be much slower than any other CMS out there. Can I just ask whether you're running your database on the same server or a separate server?

Jon
mwotton replied on at Permalink Reply
This hosting company has a separate database cluster. The database is hosted on a separate 'machine', although I cannot be certain it's not on the same physical box.

Unless there is something peculiar to C5, this shouldn't impact greatly as every site that is hosted by NetReg (unless vps or dedicated) has the same remote DB setup, and other CMSs are unaffected.
mwotton replied on at Permalink Reply
Ok so I now have this site running on Apache with the same hosting company. It is SLIGHTLY faster but still seems very very slow. I am still waiting to hear about other optimization options available.
mwotton replied on at Permalink Reply
I am currently working through some speed analysis with the host we are using. They have asked for other sites using c5, and after going through quite a few of the sites listed in the gallery, I have to say that c5 seems fairly slow across the board. Of course, these other sites are nowhere near as bad as the ones I am currently working with, but even still c5 seems rather slow compared to other CMS. The only way to get even close to Joomla, for example, is to turn full caching on. If Joomla caching is on then once again it is significantly faster than c5.

Is what I am seeing here normal?
mwotton replied on at Permalink Reply
Even with quick load times on the site, how do you find the admin? It seems to take an age to go from page to page, and even the AJAX requests seem very sluggish. The dashboard is horrendous to navigate - I end up having 3 tabs open - one with sitemap, one with scrapbooks and one more for everything else. Do you find the site is considerably slower when logged in as an admin, when compared to normal use?
frz replied on at Permalink Reply
frz
setup a site on our trial server:http://concrete5.org/about/trial...

Is that one slow to you too?
form replied on at Permalink Reply
form
@Mwotton

Did you manage to resolve this? I'm just putting a site on Netregistry and experiencing very very slow load time - usually over 10 seconds. Never encountered this before with any other host (at least 5 concrete5 site done so far). Tried all suggestions currently out there and nothing has made any noticeable
difference.

Cheers
mwotton replied on at Permalink Reply
Not at this stage. Switching to Apache (from Zeus) has made some difference, but only manual caching made the response times acceptable.

Unfortunately I have had to go back to Joomla for other sites, as we are pretty well established with NetRegistry as web developers, and changing CMS is far less disruptive than changing hosting company throughout our business. This is especially true since we have no speed issues with other CMS or frameworks.
mwotton replied on at Permalink Reply
This site:http://www.apharmacy.com.au/ has just gone live on an IIS server. It's still slow, but not as slow. 6 seconds spent waiting for that first byte is about 5.5 seconds too long. The host is reporting 100% CPU utilization by the php-cgi process for a couple of seconds (!) on each page request. And this is with caching set wherever possible.

Holy crap. This is going to be unusable. How the HECK have other people made sites with acceptable speed?
thephilm replied on at Permalink Reply
thephilm
I ended up using a custom install VPS - and I think that my load times are fantastic. Let me know if they are fast for you too!

http://innovatecentral.net/ (stock c5 5.4.1.1 install with cache enabled)

http://thephil.net - basic site but a few custom addons etc.

Concrete5 sites are fast on the right setup!

Don't forget to use online tools likehttp://www.iwebtool.com/speed_test... to make sure it's not just your connection, browser setting, plugin etc.
-Phil
Benjamin replied on at Permalink Reply
Benjamin
i ran your speed tool, it's averaging 23-40 secs. :( google's takes .17 seconds and they are running over twice as big! :((
12345j replied on at Permalink Reply
12345j
http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/customizing_c5/concrete5-on-steroids-take-two/
http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/customizing_c5/miser-web-...