Performance of wpmu vs single installs

It’s not WPMU, it’s MultiSite. WPMU was a separate app, and as off 3.0 was folded into WordPress as the MultiSite function. If you say you’re using WPMU, you’re telling us you’re using a LESS that 3.0 version.

Performance is a wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey spacey-wacey science.

Take into consideration the following:
Your themes.
Your plugins.
The number of sites.
The number of visitors.
The optimization of your server.
The kind of PHP you have installed (suPHP, FastCGI, etc etc).
Server side (and app side) caching.
The amount of memory used by all of the above.

The problem, if you’ve not guessed it, is that all of those things are different for everyone. ?? A well designed and installed MultiSite will run as well as multiple separate installs.

I’m using wpmu for short – wordpress multisite, im well aware its integrated part of wordpress now and i am using the latest version.

What I’m asking, apps, themes, server config aside:

IS wordpress multisite, with 4 childthemes plus the default main site (so 5 sites in total) more efficient on a server than 5 separate wordpress single installs?

I theory i suspect it should be, as only 1 wordpress instance is installed and running, but all childthemes work off of this instance, rather than their own instance – as all the child themes seem to reflect virtual resources if needed (such as images etc).

But comfirmation from a education source would be appreciated.

im working to implement it

i want to use it because it gives me performance in my work , it you have totally different websites there is no speed performance improvement from visitor side, if this is what you are referring to

im managing over 20 websites , 13 of them are clones, + different content

i think this is the only case where you can get improved speed tor ur visitors, when they visit some of the cloned sites

also will make ur future work easier & faster

no more upgrading 20+ wp instals, themes, post, DB & other stuff

for just 5 totally different sites, u might want to make it manually

In a zero-traffic, every site has the same theme, world, the performance should be close enough that the human eye can’t tell the difference.

That no one ever has that situation means your mileage may vary ??

(And while you may find it shorthand to call it WPMU, you’re gonna get people confused. Please don’t. We would appreciate it. ?? )

I’m using wpmu for short – wordpress multisite, im well aware its integrated part of wordpress now and i am using the latest version.

If you say you’re using wpmu, it *will* make a difference in our answers and thought processes we use to help you. ?? this is why we’re being picky. 3.1.2 is now so different from wpmu in quite a number of important ways.

IS wordpress multisite, with 4 childthemes plus the default main site (so 5 sites in total) more efficient on a server than 5 separate wordpress single installs?

The difference is negligible.

So really, wordpress multisite – assuming all the child themes belong to you and are under your administration has only that benefit – admin, an ease to adding, selecting and maintaining content between the themes.

Well, i honestly thought multisite vs several single sites would have better performance, but either way thats fine :).

thanks for the answers.

Well, i honestly thought multisite vs several single sites would have better performance, but either way thats fine :).

Better is subjective ??

You’re making the exact same calls to WordPress, be it 10 separate sites vs 1 site with 10 sub-sites, so that really can’t be any different, when you think about it.

The ‘better’ is gained in maintenance.

You’re making the exact same calls to WordPress, be it 10 separate sites vs 1 site with 10 sub-sites, so that really can’t be any different, when you think about it.

I have the same question about performance, and that’s a good point.

What about if you increase blogs to like 1,000? Same calls either way, per your comment.

This is where I get confused. 1 mysql engine but either several db’s with a few tables or one db with more tables.

Any performance gains with multisite? What about record locking, or other database access pros/cons?

Not so as you’d notice. If your server can handle 1000 separate blogs, it can handle 1000 on MultiSite.