I’m trying to make Blender Artists faster and just activated a CDN (Content Delivery Network) that is used to cache and serve our static assets (images, javascript etc) from a server closer to you. This is not cheap, so I’m eager to get your feedback and learn if you feel this made a difference.
Please note:
The initial pageload should be faster since the required javascript is now served from the CDN.
I only updated the posts of the last 30 days, so any graphics on them will now be served from the CDN
To test:
Please use Blender Artists for a while, focusing on recent posts, and complete the poll below.
Please pick the right poll for desktop or mobile use.
Thanks!
DESKTOP: Did you notice a difference in site speed since today?
Yes, the site is faster
I can’t tell a difference
No, the site is slower
0voters
MOBILE: Did you notice a difference in site speed since today?
Loading of topics in Chrome on Windows 10 desktop doesn’t really feel faster at the moment, but I’ve got the impression that loading new parts within a discussion (when scrolling up from the bottom) has become a bit snappier.
Yeah, fetching new information from the database is not affected by this. It’s only static files that should be sped up. But we tend to serve a lot of those, so it should help (in theory ).
The initial load is always a bit long as Discourse is really a Javascript app, so it needs to load a lot of stuff. After that it should be better though. Still, was the initial load faster, or the same as always?
Since I wasn’t paying attention how fast it was before, I believe it feels a bit faster. Only thing I noticed was re-loading a post I had just visited took longer than the initial load time.
Renzatic
(Professor Emeritus Billy H. Wafflesmith XIV Esq.)
11
I’m not noticing any immediate differences. Browsing through the site has always been nice and speedy for me, and I’ve never had any issues with slow loading thumbnails. There have been occasions where it can sometimes take a bit to stream in a full sized picture, but that’s a fairly rare occurrence.
I’ll play around with it a bit more, but right now, nothing’s really jumping out at me.
Hmm, I don’t see how that would be technically possible as those requests don’t involve the CDN at all That said, based on the feedback so far I don’t think this experiment is a success and I don’t need to spend the additional $$ on it. I’ll let it run until Monday and then decide.
It feels a bit faster when scrolling quickly through a thread, but I’m not sure if it is just a psychological effect because I was expecting it to be faster.
Still, I live in Europe, and I think the server is in Europe, right? So it shouldn’t make much of a difference for me.
Results aren’t great yet, but I want to let this run for a few more days to see the impact on our Google ranking. Speed is a crucial factor with them, I’m curious to see if this contributes in any way.
I can’t really see a difference but I’m either using it from home using adsl with speeds from 20 years ago or at work on what might be the slowest VDI in human existence. Also, living on the southern hemisphere I’m probably not using the site at peak times.
Yeah I was wondering if this impacts mostly people on a fast connection. I have a 100MB line and to me it does seem to speed things up a bit.
Renzatic
(Professor Emeritus Billy H. Wafflesmith XIV Esq.)
24
I’ve got a solid fiber connection, and maybe it’s a little faster in the big threads, but not enough to be immediately noticeable.
But with that said, BA has never been that a slow of a site for me. It’s always been plenty responsive, and other than those rare occasions I mentioned above, I’ve never had to wait more than a second or two for things to pop up.
Well, I did just upload 3 videos into a single post on my sketchbook and it the tab didnt freeze, I dunno if thats related to the update but that seems new!