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Hi, I've always been very impressed with the flexibility and performance of StackOverflow.com. I actually didn't realize StackExchange had been an option until reading about the cancellation of the program yesterday. But its a happy coincidence for me as it led me to find out about OSQA. Can someone comment on the performance of the osqa code base vs the performance of stackoverflow? I have a number of ideas that I think would make great communities using this technology, but I'm curious about how this system matches up against stackoverflow's system. Also are there any major feature differences between the two systems? Thanks, |
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UPDATE: In the past couple of months since this question was originally posed, there have been two major developments:
I think the point where OSQA and StackExchange reach feature parity is coming soon, or may already be here. More significant, however, is that OSQA has moved forward into new territory where neither StackExchange nor any of the other Q&A systems has gone, and we are accelerating. In the long run, I hope this means that healthy competition will yield great results and great solutions for users everywhere. We all benefit when market competition inspires innovation. StackOverflow is certain to keep improving, but you can be sure that OSQA will, too. I'm a curious. What sites are you refering to in 1?
(28 Nov '11, 10:36)
skipperkongen
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@skipperkongen - we try to keep track of OSQA sites here: http://meta.osqa.net/questions/12/what-sites-are-running-osqa
(28 Nov '11, 16:36)
Andrew_S ♦
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Hi Max, and welcome to the OSQA community. We share your sentiments about the impressive performance of StackOverflow, especially considering the remarkable speed and scale of that site's growth. You really have to hand it to Jeff and Joel for seeing a need and satisfying it. StackOverflow is a monster. No OSQA community has yet grown to anything like the scale of StackOverflow, but I hope you'll see from browsing around this site that OSQA is a respectably fast performer. We take pains to eliminate unnecessary database calls and redundant logic whenever possible, and we make intelligent use of caching to deliver scalability that should be up to the challenge of running a large site. Additionally, we expect to achieve further performance and scalability gains in future versions of OSQA. Performance and reliability are high priorities in OSQA. Your second question, while short, is actually much more complicated and involved to answer. I'll just say that there is a wealth of new features already planned into upcoming versions of OSQA. StackOverflow and OSQA may have distinct similarities today, but I believe it will become apparent soon that they are on divergent paths. OSQA is open source software which will become easier for people to adopt and use, and StackOverflow is proprietary software. We have built an open, modular, extensible system that can be adapted for all kinds of interesting uses. It will be intriguing to watch how people use it. Cheers, |
