Choosing Java Spring as a scalable server-side framework for a large website

Question

I'm currently facing a dilema regarding the appropriate server-side framework to use.

Basically, I want to choose the best framework for building a large website to serve millions of page hits. The website itself will be heavily database and ajax reliant, and thus will need to be planned for scalability right from the start.

My wants/needs for a suitable server-side framework are the following:

• High-Level OO-based language support with some meta programming support.
• Proper scalability and load balancing on a framework level.
• MVC architecture.
• ORM support or atleast Object level mapping support.
• Proper routing (URL Rewriting) support.

My question finally is that is the Java Spring framework a suitable candidate for a operating a large website based on the wants and needs that were mentioned above? Should I stick to something like Django or Rails?

Answer 1

Spring is a good framework. However, by itself it is not going to solve your scalability problems (and no other framework would).

To scale heavy load on servers you need to make sure that your servers are stateless or use load balancers with sticky sessions. To reduce load on database you will need caches. No framework will solve it for you.

In other words, think about overall system design rather than specific coding framework.

Answer 2

I would prefer the following.

1. Spring Framework (MVC architecture and DI Principle).
2. Hibernate Framework.
3. Caching mechanisam using memcache / Infinispan for reducing load on servers.
4. Horizontal Load balancing using multiple server/db instances.