# Rails or Java J2EE (Spring, Struts Shale) - scalabilty **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [January 19, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870 "2006-01-19T21:40:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mgreenly)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870/1 "2006-01-19T21:40:51Z")
Hi, normally I am doing all my webprojects with PHP. But now I am planning to use a framework, either Ruby On Rails, or Java in particular J2EE with Java Spring, or Struts Shale. Well, I already tried RoR a few month ago, so I am simply comparing it to the Java alternatives now. My problem is, that maybe using Java for my projects is like using a dredger to grub a small hole 🙂 But on the other hand I don’t know, how heavily my next project will be used. Maybe I have 50 requests per second, or only 50 requests per hour. I only have one server for this project (1,5 GHz, 512 MB RAM) and I am not sure, if ruby on rails can manage 50 requests per second. Any experiences? I don’t know, how Tomcat behaves compared to ruby on rails. Does anybody know, which one scales better? Which one needs more Cpu Power, or memory usage? PHP seems to use less memory, or cpu power compared to RoR. Or would it be possible to run similar webapps like amazon, or ebay with RoR? (Having enough server capacity assumed) With Java it is possible to share the application on several servers (if this case should occur). Is this possible with RoR too? Greetings Mike ---
**Author:** ![mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mgreenly)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870/2 "2006-01-19T21:49:54Z")
On 1/19/06, Michael G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > other hand I don’t know, how heavily my next project will be used. Maybe > I have 50 requests per second, or only 50 requests per hour. I only have > one server for this project (1,5 GHz, 512 MB RAM) and I am not sure, if > ruby on rails can manage 50 requests per second. Any experiences? This all depends on what sort of work your app is doing. The # of requests you can handle per second will vary so widely that without a better idea of what you’re doing, it’s almost impossible to say. I don’t know, how Tomcat behaves compared to ruby on rails. Does anybody > know, which one scales better? Which one needs more Cpu Power, or memory > usage? PHP seems to use less memory, or cpu power compared to RoR. Or > would it be possible to run similar webapps like amazon, or ebay with > RoR? (Having enough server capacity assumed) With enough server capacity, RoR can scale quite well. Raw performance numbers are usually a bit lower than Java due to the fact that RoR is interpreted, while Java is byte-compiled. Ruby is not the language to use if you need to eke out every last bit of performance from a given piece of hardware. With the price of hardware nowadays, this is almost never an issue. With Java it is possible to share the application on several servers (if > this case should occur). Is this possible with RoR too? Using FastCGI (maybe SCGI but I haven’t looked into it), you can distribute RoR apps w/ load balancing across many servers. Greetings ---
**Author:** ![mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mgreenly)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870/3 "2006-01-19T22:59:33Z")
Scalability is manageable. Code that is completely obtuse and verbose and just plain ugly is not. Use Ruby. Mike P. Enterprise Java Developer ---
**Author:** ![mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mgreenly)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 11:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870/4 "2006-01-19T23:57:02Z")
Hi, you are working with JavaEE? Do you use it at work? And in your free time RoR? I’ve read some articles about the next version of struts, struts shale. Have you ever heard about? Do you think, this will change the situation? Or not? Greetings Mike ---
**Author:** ![mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mgreenly)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 10:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870/5 "2006-01-19T22:56:32Z")
Hi, first thanks for your answer. > This all depends on what sort of work your app is doing. The # of > requests you can handle per second will vary so widely that without a > better idea of what you’re doing, it’s almost impossible to say. Hm yeah this is right of course. > With enough server capacity, RoR can scale quite well. Raw > performance numbers are usually a bit lower than Java due to the fact > that RoR is interpreted, while Java is byte-compiled. Ruby is not the > language to use if you need to eke out every last bit of performance > from a given piece of hardware. With the price of hardware nowadays, > this is almost never an issue. Ok, but Ruby will have bytecode in the future too. So this is only a disadvantage at the moment 🙂 This will change I guess. > Using FastCGI (maybe SCGI but I haven’t looked into it), you can > distribute RoR apps w/ load balancing across many servers. This sounds really nice. Thanks Mike ---
**Author:** ![mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mgreenly)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 12:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870/6 "2006-01-20T00:57:24Z")
Hi, thanks for your answer. This helps me a little bit to decide. Normally I would use RoR for home, because I am really fast in developing with it. But on the other hand: I would learn more with J2EE, because I don’t have any experiences in J2EE, Struts and Co. Maybe this is more useful, than simply bringing a new webproject up and running, because the project is only for myself and not for a customer. Hm, difficult. Greetings Mike ---
**Author:** ![mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mgreenly)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870/7 "2006-01-20T00:27:13Z")
I am a fulltime Java programmer but have recently switch to coding rails at home. At work we spent a significant amount of time bringing together and customizing Struts, Tiles, an ORM, Ant and JUnit into a single cohesive package. This was well before I knew anything about rails, and as you know, rails comes with all this functionality built in and in a standardized fashion to boot. Fairly depressing. This means that comparing RoR to Struts (at least how Struts works currently) is not adequate, because Struts does not contain a data persistence layer, a pre-configured build process and a built-in testing framework. All these pieces are scattered about various open source projects, albeit mostly of the Jakarta flavor. Also Rails contains a more extensive “best-practices layer” in all its components, meaning that it encourages you to write test cases and use a automated build process from the start. You don’t have to get discouraged trying to set a test harness, it just runs. Some Java project may pop up that mimics RoR, but I’m not aware of any that are there yet and that don’t use a godawful amount of XML in the process. I am disallusion with Spring, at least for web projects. Some PHP projects are around, but I haven’t messed with them yet. My 2 cents. -Theo ---
**Author:** ![mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@mgreenly](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mgreenly)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 1:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-or-java-j2ee-spring-struts-shale-scalabilty/52870/8 "2006-01-20T01:00:26Z")
Same on pretty much all counts here. I have done a lot in the Java space and most of the really cool stuff happening around Java is just attempts to make Java dynamic. To make Java more like Ruby by all kinds of abstractions around Java Beans, etc. It gets so that every 100 lines of Java starts to look like 10 lines of Ruby just waiting to pop out. I am hoping that Rails will free me from that misery soon. Best, Mike P.