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I am sending >1000 mails per day for a mailing list. Right now they are all sent with php mail(). Would it put less load on the server if they were sent through a script with SMTP ?

mike23
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Not really, no: the mail needs to go through SMTP anyway, so you're just changing how it gets there (on some hosts, mail() uses SMTP internally, anyway). If the server is highly loaded while sending, could it be something else in your script that's generating the load?

Piskvor left the building
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  • It could potentially take longer to use an external SMTP connection, since it would have to take time to connect to that host. I'm not sure how this would play out performance-wise, but the requests themselves would probably take longer. – Andy Fleming Nov 07 '11 at 07:37
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    @DesignerGuy: I was assuming the SMTP server would be on localhost, or on local network. Assuming a server "out there somewhere", it would take longer, yes; OTOH, thus spreading the requests out might help with the load. – Piskvor left the building Nov 07 '11 at 07:44
  • Got it. Ya, it is hard to say. – Andy Fleming Nov 07 '11 at 07:47
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    @mike23 - You should try it out and monitor the load. You should be able to tell relatively quickly if it is better or not. – Andy Fleming Nov 07 '11 at 07:47