Database Bottlenecks in Web Apps

This cluster centers on debates about whether databases and their queries are the primary performance bottlenecks in web applications, contrasting them with issues in code, hardware, or other components.

📉 Falling 0.4x Databases
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Keywords

RAM e.g CPU DBA SQL ORM ADO.Net RDBMS HTTP OS database bottleneck queries performance db databases query mysql application speed

Sample Comments

ape4 • May 8, 2017 • View on HN

Is processing speed the bottleneck for databases?

pytrin • Aug 25, 2012 • View on HN

No, you still have a problem in your database. Running a database smoothly with large datasets is the main performance problem for web applications. As fast as you can get with smart DB architecture, DB calls still take the bulk of the time compared to code running time.

jdub • Aug 25, 2012 • View on HN

A different perspective: If the database is the bottleneck in your web application, you have a problem in your code. :-)

pytrin • Aug 25, 2012 • View on HN

Well put, the database is usually the bottleneck in web applications, not the language or code.

amelius • Jul 2, 2018 • View on HN

I guess in the end the database will be the bottleneck in many cases.

jbellis • Jan 19, 2011 • View on HN

Sure... until your database is your bottleneck.

palish • Aug 22, 2007 • View on HN

Congrats. It seems like the main bottleneck of webapps is the on-disk database. I'd say that if your app is small enough you shouldn't even start with a database, but that would be a preoptimization.

GrumpyNl • Jun 7, 2019 • View on HN

Biggest bottleneck these days are poorly written sqls and badly optimized db's. Hardware isn't really an issue anymore.

Nextgrid • Apr 3, 2023 • View on HN

Are there really many projects where the actual web framework is the bottleneck, as opposed to the DB?

nancyp • Sep 28, 2023 • View on HN

This is a solution to problem that does not exists. In database heavy apps the latency is the least of the concern. unless that architecture is not optimal in some cases to meet compliance.