CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptnode.jsperformanceserver
Frostbch
Frostbch

Reputation: 93

Many small or one bigger POST request?

I need to gather information when user sees an article. User will browse through 1-30 articles in a minute (maybe even more if user just scrolls through everything looking something specific). I was wondering which way i can keep my server costs at minimum:

  1. At client side javascript i push article id's into an array and send it to server when there is 30-60 id's. At server i loop through all the id's and insert them into database.

  2. Every single time when user sees an article i will send one article id to server. In some cases this can cause over 60 requests in a minute. At server i insert the id into database.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 250

Answers (1)

thrust
thrust

Reputation: 215

In most of the cases, there is always a trade-off. And a lot of times, the optimal solution lies somewhere in the middle. I feel you should support both and use them interchangeably depending on the situation. Please go through following scenarios:

  • Will your end-user have bandwidth issues? If yes, it may make sense to go with option 2 or reduce the number of articles to a number such that it can be easily fetched at lower bandwidth as well.
  • Assuming the user does not has bandwidth issues such that loading of 30-60 articles won't take a lot of time for user, you can go with option 1 and keep using this option for subsequent fetch as well.
  • A lot of times it will make sense to go with option 1 for initial fetch and then fetch a lower number of articles after that.
  • Regarding server cost, it will make sense to send 30-60 articles together provided user reads them all. If you feel he won't read them all, find an optimal number using your app's analytics and send those number of articles in one go, provided bandwidth won't be an issue for user.

tl;dr; In data you should trust. Use your intuition, existing app usage patterns, and bandwidth availability of the user to make an informed decision. Also, server cost is not the only thing. Experience matters more, I think.

Upvotes: 3

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