Is there a reason not to use Pressflow instead of Drupal 6?

Question

When building a Drupal 6 site (mysql+php5), are there any reasons not to use Pressflow on the production server?

Answer 1

There is nothing that should explicitly stop you from doing so. However there are some things that may be worth considering.

• There are less developers working on pressflow and there may be a loger time to get core bugs fixed. Also there are less people using it so more chance of finding an undiscovered bug.

• While pressflow is API compatible, most modules are not tested against pressflow so a particular module may not work with pressflow.

• Security fixes may take longer to get into pressflow than Drupal core.

• It is potentially more difficult to configure as there are settings aimed at high end performance.

Finally I suppose I would turn round the question, unless you have a website with a lot of load, why would you use a distribution aimed at high traffic sites. A lot of the scalability gains in pressflow have been back ported from D7, so you may consider that as well.

Note, I don’t have anything against pressflow, I have used it and it has worked well and the people who work on it are very clever. I am just pointing out general risks with using a less popular branch.