I read one other post on the topic in the forums about hosting recommendations, but it did not answer this question, which I hope I can put such that it will be helpful to others. I am trying to put together a quote for a client.

Bottom line, what type of hosting resources are needed to run Wickle, from your experience?

First off, obviously there are some modules and functions that will individually gobble up resources, such as video and audio, so sharing feedback with and then without these resources enabled would be helpful. Let me know if there are others that would fit this category.

My understanding is that the biggest drains would be on the volume of people both using the site at the same time, and loging in at any one time.  Other than this, how efficient the software is and how much content and what type of content there is both filling up storage and using up bandwidth and CPU.  I imagine Wickle is fairly efficient in and of itself due to being developed recently from ground up with the large vision in place, modulated, etc.

Profile 1 - starting out: What types of bandwidth, storage and CPU requirements would be recommended for a site that has 500 to 1000 member in its database, with maybe 200 people active on the site per day and any other defining characteristics that would define a snapshot to use as a guidepost. No video or audio modules/functions enabled.

Profile 2:  And if you don't have that sort of info, how about real data feedback on what you do have?

In my case, with a site that I imagine will not grow beyond Profile 1 above in the first year or two, I am wondering if I can just add it onto a shared resellser hosting plan I have, or if I will need to start out with a minimum of a VPS account with ? resources allocated.

Final question in the mix, I don't imagine it would be a bear to move the site from one server to another, but wanted to hear any feedback on that as well.

Thanks so much.

Wiccle is quite resource-friendly as it is; 1.2 MB to 3.5 MB memory usage per pageload depending on page configuration, page processing time between 0.05 seconds and 0.35 seconds on a low-end VPS with a dozen other sites on.

Here are two FAQ threads you'll want to read:

• What are the Server Requirements for iWiccle/Wiccle?
• iWiccle/Wiccle Resource Tracking

You can also track the resource usage of each one of your pages. You can even track your pages' resource usage and browse them in the database, spotting bottlenecks in your site performance! (See the second thread above.)

To get a real time view of resources used by any given page, log in as administrator and type &debug=on to the end of any URL on your site. A debug terminal will then be included at the bottom of the page:

In the above, you can see all SQL queries used on the page, along with memory usage details and CPU processing time. The above screenshot (memory 2MB / CPU time 0.14 sec) is taken from the WWB Demo eCommerce Portal page, with five content units and two dynamic modules' content enveloped in.

(And incidentally, in the above I notice a duplicate query which I am now yanking out to cut down further on CPU usage. Everything is well-tracked and structured, and therefore easy to keep trimmed down to the necessary minimum. Bug report tagged; stuff like this needs to go out to keep the system free of clutter.)

When testing your pages' performance, bear in mind that it's good to view it a couple of times, as a busy server may take a moment to respond, and the response time may not reflect the actual server load of that particular page. You'll get a reliable reading by refreshing a couple of times, and looking at the most common CPU time that's displayed — that's the time when the CPU was free to crunch the page up.

Also bear in mind that these already fair/good performance levels are with cache off. The dynamic intelligent cache we are working on (not rolled out yet) will dramatically cut this further, making it what I believe is the most resource-friendly CMS with dynamic content on the market.  It uses a smart combination of database and filesystem to bring loading and processing to an absolute minimum. =)

I have just hacked in a little modification at the WWB demo site to let everyone see the page resource usage statistics across the site (mouseover to change opacity). Should give you more of an idea of what to expect in terms of what Wiccle requires.

A related note: While we don't have a conventional filesystem cache in place, we do use session cache for a good number of things; this is why the query count in any given module/page will go down after the first load in a user session (where module menus and some other data are cached), as well as after the first page load in a session (where user details, permission masks etc. are cached).

(There's also a third kind of internal data cache that has to do with templates and languages, but that doesn't affect the load between pages; it only cuts down resource usage on pages with multiple content blocks using overlapping sources.)

While we're on about the demo and testing the system:

• If anyone spots bottleneck pages (pages that consistently take more time and use more memory than expected), please copy over the contents of the page statistics box here for debugging.
• All errors are logged into the database. The more you use and test the demo, the more debugging information we receive. (Debug data is also available in your site's Admin CP > System > System logs.)