ColdFusion 10 vs Railo

So -- the new CF licensing policy has me thinking.... Anyone out there using Railo in a a high volume production environment?   Using beefy hardware, I have been able to avoid the need to cluster so far.  So, how is Railo's performance? The thing I need most is dependability.  I don't just have time to babysit temperamental installs. Is Railo rock-solid? And what about security? How is its cfscript implementation?  I am on a mission to avoid tags to the extent possible, except when rendering html. I checked out Railo's unsupported tags and functions, and only cfspreadsheet is a problem, but I see that there is an extension out there.  I often have the need to output data into multiple sheets within one file... -- Cheers! Michael David

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:04 AM, Michael David <lists@michaeldavid.com>wrote: > Anyone out there using Railo in a a high volume production environment? >   Using beefy hardware, I have been able to avoid the need to cluster so > far.  So, how is Railo's performance? > My observations have been that generally speaking, Railo outperforms ColdFusion, but this is dependent on your code, your app, etc... there is no guarantee that it will be faster. Be sure to test your app yourself. The thing I need most is dependability.  I don't just have time to > babysit temperamental installs. Is Railo rock-solid? > It's pretty solid, though there are occasional issues. I have to say that I've found a few more issues on Railo than I have in CF, but the Railo guys usually fix them very quickly (sometimes in 24 hours) where Adobe can take months or even an entire product cycle to fix something. And what about security? > What about it? This question is not specific enough to answer. > How is its cfscript implementation?  I am on a mission to avoid tags to > the extent possible, except when rendering html. > It's fine. > I checked out Railo's unsupported tags and functions, and only > cfspreadsheet is a problem, but I see that there is > an extension out there.  I often have the need to output data into > multiple sheets within one file... If you are the impatient type who expects everything to work the first time, 100% of the time, and are not willing to invest any TIME at all figuring something out, this is usually offset with another type of investment: MONEY. If this is your expectation, I would either 1) buy Adobe ColdFusion commercial licenses w/support or 2) user Railo and buy consulting help from the Railo team (getrailo.com). Having said that, I've gotten Railo working in production without buying consulting, but I may or may not have more patience than you do. -Cameron -- Cameron Childress -- p:   678.637.5072 im: cameroncf facebook <http://www.facebook.com/cameroncf>; | twitter<http://twitter.com/cameronc>; | google+ <https://profiles.google.com/u/0/117829379451708140985>;

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Michael David <lists@michaeldavid.com>wrote: > > So -- the new CF licensing policy has me thinking.... > > Anyone out there using Railo in a a high volume production environment? >   Using beefy hardware, I have been able to avoid the need to cluster so > far.  So, how is Railo's performance? > Unless you're doing something like a lot of Microsoft or PDF integration, Railo will obliterate ACF in performance. Every time. All the time. Period.  You'll need wwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy less hardware with Railo. > The thing I need most is dependability.  I don't just have time to > babysit temperamental installs. Is Railo rock-solid? > Hell yes. > And what about security? > Not sure what exactly you're getting at, but Railo is at least as "secure" as ACF. In just a basic installation, I'd venture to say that Railo is more secure, as each Railo instance provides sandboxing out of the box, giving a "Web Administrator" to each project/application. But to really answer your question, we'd need a much more detailed question (or series of questions). > How is its cfscript implementation?  I am on a mission to avoid tags to > the extent possible, except when rendering html. > Railo's cfscript implementation beats the hell out of ACF's, and has for years. Go run this on ACF. Then install Railo and give it a whirl. :-) <cfscript>     foo = {         x:'yay!',         y:'hooray!',         z:'rock on, Railo!'     }     writeDump( foo ) </cfscript> > I checked out Railo's unsupported tags and functions, and only > cfspreadsheet is a problem, but I see that there is > an extension out there.  I often have the need to output data into > multiple sheets within one file... > I don't do much with cfspreadsheet, so I don't know if that's a deal breaker or not. I can say that the extension has done what I needed and done it well the handful of times I've needed that functionality. <opinion> Bottom line. The future of CFML *is* Railo. </opinion> HTH!

----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- Um - it works fine in ColdFusion if you add semicolons. Are you seriously arguing Railo beats the "hell" out of ColdFusion because you can leave off semicolons?

Interesting that you picked only that argument. :-) That example is more than just semi-colons, and is a very small sampling of how and why cfscript in Railo beats the hell out of cfscript in ACF. You know it as well as I do, although I can appreciate your reasoning for needing to defend ACF. :-) <cfscript>     foo = myService[ myMethod ]( argumentCollection: arguments ) </cfscript> There's another perfect example of how cfscript in ACF blows. Something that should have (and could have) been supported for years, but Adobe intentionally chose not to support it. Again, I appreciate your need to defend ACF. And your right to do so. I, too, was once a staunch supporter of ACF. Things change. :-) On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Raymond Camden <raymondcamden@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

> know it as well as I do, although I can appreciate your reasoning for Actually I don't. It was an honest question. If semicolons are the only thing holding you back from being successful, then you probably have other problems! (And by 'you' I mean generically, not picking on you in particular.) I'd honestly like to hear more about why (which I see you did below). ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more ----- I like that syntax. But your seriously saying script support 'blows' because it doesn't support that (and actually, you can do this, just with a different syntax). We will have to agree to disagree. I don't think it's fair to say ColdFusion's script support is crap because it doesn't support a few things - especially missing semicolons. Anyway - just my (and your) opinion. > Again, I appreciate your need to defend ACF. And your right to do so. I, > too, was once a staunch supporter of ACF. Things change. :-) It's not so much I need to defend ColdFusion, I just think your argument (your initial one) was incredibly weak. Then again - semicolons seem to be somewhat of a big deal these days for reasons I'll never fathom.

OK, you are correct. I shall retract my statement, and offer an amended one. :-) ACF's cfscript support does not blow. As of ACF 9.0.1, cfscript support was mostly very good. (Prior to ACF 9.0.1, not so much.) I've just been informed that ACF10 fixed the colon issue, so that's another step in the right direction. But when compared to Railo, which has happily supported all the cfscript stuff (and then some) for many, many, many, many, many releases, the fact that Adobe continues to make stupid decisions like "Hey, let's add another function!" instead of just fixing cfscript support, well, BLOWS.  :-) On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:13 AM, Raymond Camden <raymondcamden@gmail.com>wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Michael, it is production ready absolutely and many people are using it in heavy environments. Performance in general  is better I have found, but as with any product it cannot be better at everything. I have found for example that MangoBlog doesn't run as fast on Railo for whatever reason and is slowing to start up on application reload. I have not so far had any major issues with Railo falling over, and it can be restarted from its own Railo admin which is very handy. If you run on windows, you can use the Helicon Zoo module to run Railo, which automatically runs each website in its own java instance, thus you will have all your sites isolated running their own Railo app. This is basically like running CF enterprise multi-server. You can even install it from the Microsoft Web Platform Installer see this: http://www.michaels.me.uk/post.cfm/new-railo-and-mura-installer-for-the-microsoft-web-platform I have converted all my own sites from CF to Railo with very little work required and they have all been running fine. However just to make it clear, this wa snot because Is dislike CF, but rather because I was not using any CF specific features, so there was no reason to waste a license when all my sites could run happily on Railo. if your interested here are the sites. www.cfsearch.com www.cfmldeveloper.com www.michaels.me.uk www.cfmxhosting.co.uk Security is an improvement over CF is one big way, every site is sandboxed by default, so can only access its own context root. So you do not have to manage sandboxes. The downside is if you want more granular control and disable certain tags. If you run the Helicon Zoo module then even more so as each site is also isolated in its JVM instance too, which I believe is bound by the application pool identity (but I could be wrong). If your running on Linux, then you could still do all this stuff, you will just have to do it manually. The only real downside I have found is the Railo community, but Railo itself is very solid product. -- Russ Michaels www.bluethunderinternet.com  : Business hosting services & solutions www.cfmldeveloper.com        : ColdFusion developer community www.michaels.me.uk           : my blog www.cfsearch.com             : ColdFusion search engine ** *skype me*                     : russmichaels