Test Method

AB (Apache Bench) was used to generate the load to each server.  AB was configured for a concurancy (simultaneous requests) level of 25, and for 10,000 pages.  Results were taken as the average requests per second for the test.  Each test scenario was executed between three and ten times, depending on the consistancy of the data.  For example, runs that differed by less than one percent were executed three times.  The median value was used as the actual number.  Between test scenarios, both the webserver (Apache or Lighttpd), and MySQL was restarted to negate any cache effects. 

Test Versions

A stock install of Joomla 1.5.1 was used (Build 9993) with no alterations for these tests.  Sample data was installed, and the FTP layer was NOT used.