Soliciting CherryPy Case Studies and Projects

[schmichael]

Hi all,

At the CherryPy BOF[1] at Pycon in Chicago we discussed how people are
using CherryPy in lots of different ways. We're afraid people aren't
grokking how flexible CherryPy is just by briefly glancing at the web
site and thought having some interesting case studies would be useful.

The wiki has a good start: http://www.cherrypy.org/wiki/SuccessStories

However, its a bit out of date, and it'd be nice to have some great
Case Studies as well as a separate list of Projects using CherryPy.

If your company deploys CherryPy or you've used CherryPy for a client,
I'd love to hear the story. Here's a basic format you could follow:

Who is using CherryPy: (your name)
Where are you using Cherrypy?
(Company or client name. You can of course remain anonymous)

What do you do with CherryPy?
(What's your project: a traditional public web site? internal
web services?)

How is CherryPy deployed?
(Behind modproxy/modpython/modwsgi, on a cluster behind a load
balancer, or is it your frontend HTTP server?)

How long have you used CherryPy?
(The "when" question)

Why did you choose CherryPy?
(While "because its the best" is obviously the answer, a little
more detail would be nice. ;) )

Remember you can either respond here or just e-mail me directly. Feel
free to include screenshots, links, code snippets, diagrams, etc.

With 3.1 nearing release, it'd be nice if we could launch an updated
version of the web site at the same time. Your help is greatly
appreciated!

Michael Schurter
<firstname>.<lastname>@gmail.com

[1]
if excuse not in ['at funeral', 'giving birth', 'saving planet']:
raise Exception('%s is no reason to miss the CherryPy BOF' % excuse)

[Robert Brewer]

schmichael wrote:
> If your company deploys CherryPy or you've used CherryPy for a client,
> I'd love to hear the story. Here's a basic format you could follow:

I'll start:

Where are you using Cherrypy?

etsy.com

What do you do with CherryPy?

We built the "gift guides" feature [1] using CherryPy.
How is CherryPy deployed?
Behind BigIP F5's, then lighttpd using FastCGI

How long have you used CherryPy?

Six months.

Why did you choose CherryPy?

I work there. ;) We also chose it for its "get out of the way"
approach and extreme extensibility.

Robert Brewer
fuma...@aminus.org

[1] http://www.etsy.com/gift-guides/

[jamwt]

On Mar 18, 1:16 pm, schmichael <michael.schur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Where are you using Cherrypy?

YouGov, Plc. (http://www.yougov.com). We're an international survey
research organization

> What do you do with CherryPy?

We use CherryPy for key systems, both internal and public. Our
CherryPy-based proprietary survey system, for example, conducts
several million surveys a year.

> How is CherryPy deployed?

CherryPy is deployed behind ZXTM (http://www.zeus.com/products/zxtm/)
on a cluster of virtualized machines.

> How long have you used CherryPy?

We've been building our HTTP applications on CherryPy since 2005.

> Why did you choose CherryPy?

CherryPy provides an excellent HTTP implementation and a elegant tool
system to hook into various stages of the response process. It does
just the right amount to create a flexible yet simple platform to
build specialized web frameworks and applications for our diverse
business requirements. Over years of use it has proven its maturity--
uptime and predictability is key for us, and CherryPy has never let us
down.

You can check out our US portal here: http://www.pollingpoint.com

The portal, survey links on the portal, and supporting systems are all
running CherryPy.

Jamie Turner
VP of Information Services
YouGov America

[Pete H]

On Mar 18, 8:16 pm, schmichael <michael.schur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> If your company deploys CherryPy or you've used CherryPy for a client,
> I'd love to hear the story. Here's a basic format you could follow:

Where are you using CherryPy

[Pete H]

On Mar 18, 8:16 pm, schmichael <michael.schur...@gmail.com> wrote:

> If your company deploys CherryPy or you've used CherryPy for a client,
> I'd love to hear the story. Here's a basic format you could follow:

Where are you using Cherrypy?

The Shetland Sheeep Society, and other small UK breed
societies

What do you do with CherryPy?

I'm re-implementing/re-designing a registrations and membership
database I wrote and developed over the last 14 years or so using
Paradox for Windows as a web service.

How is CherryPy deployed?
For early testing as CGI with suexec. However I have deployment
scripts to run behind mod_python, mod_wsgi and with the CherryPy
server standalone or behind Apache.

How long have you used CherryPy?

For six months or so - since I started implementing my redesign
of the original application.

Why did you choose CherryPy?

Because it's the only framework I found that:
Saves me a lot of work handling HTTP
Doesn't tie me to anyone's pre-conceived ideas of what else I
need - I can't see the point of an ORM, SQL isn't that bad and
Python's DB-API does the escaping for me. Ditto a template language -
Python has good enough string handling methods.
Is incredibly flexible in it's configuration.
The Tools hooking facility enables the behaviour to be modified
very easily, eg a few lines of code takes care of input sanitising, a
few more (from the CherryPy Essentials book) allows me to abstract
document generation in case I ever want to use a templating system,
and a (lot) more allows me to add my own authentication and
authorisation scheme - all configurable at a high level of granularity
with the CherryPy configuration facility.

Inital pages can be seen at www.somborneshetlands.co.uk. This has
pages for Shetland Sheep and Shetland Cattle - two applications using
essentially the same code but each mounted on it's own tree below the
server root. The Cattle pages are password protected (for political
reasons - don't ask!) using an early version of my authentication
tool.

Pete Hardman

[boost...@googlemail.com]

your site does not work well
Shetland Sheep Society Database - Find Sheep
If one type no text for search, then
http://www.somborneshetlands.co.uk/sss/sheep?id=&button=search&step=20

500 Internal Server Error
The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from
fulfilling the request.

[DavidA]

> Where are you using Cherrypy?

We are a medium/large distressed hedge fund in Greenwich, CT.

> What do you do with CherryPy?

Most of our internal proprietary applications are web-based using
CherryPy. This includes reporting tools, a task scheduling system, and
various business applications.

> How is CherryPy deployed?
We have four CherryPy servers running under Windows 2003 Server
sitting behind pound for load balancing. We use Windows because we
have a few Win dependencies (A/D integration, 3rd party library for
generating Excel workbooks, NTFS).

> How long have you used CherryPy?

Two years

> Why did you choose CherryPy?

We started under Django, but found the ORM and templates limiting. We
converted to CherryPy using the DB-API directly (MySQL) and are
currently using Preppy, but also kicking the tires on Mako.

CherryPy has worked pretty well for us, but I still think we aren't
getting the full value out of it. Every time I read some of the CP
website/wiki, I learn another trick on how to do things better. More
examples, how-tos, and FAQs would be really great.

[Pete H]

On Mar 20, 7:15 pm, "boostpy2...@yahoo.com.cn"

<boostpy2...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> your site does not work well
> Shetland Sheep Society Database - Find Sheep

> If one type no text for search, thenhttp://www.somborneshetlands.co.uk/sss/sheep?id=&button=search&step=20

>
> 500 Internal Server Error
> The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from
> fulfilling the request.

Thanks for that. Now fixed. Must spend more time on test cases....

[morellik]

On Mar 18, 9:16 pm, schmichael <michael.schur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,

>
> Who is using CherryPy:
Enrico Morelli

> Where are you using Cherrypy?
> (Company or client name. You can of course remain anonymous)

CERM the magnetic resonance center department of the University of
Florence

>
> What do you do with CherryPy?
> (What's your project: a traditional public web site? internal
> web services?)

Internal web services. Some applications to manage our
instrumentation.

Some screenshots are available on

http://www.cerm.unifi.it/WebNMR2/
http://www.cerm.unifi.it/Biolab

Now I'm writing a CherryPy application to create and launch
calculations on our cluster, manage jobs and user's home
directories. The filemanager inside the application permits to create
files/directories, remove files/directories, upload and download
files,
creation of tarfiles, copy files from one location to another and so
on.

>
> How is CherryPy deployed?
> (Behind modproxy/modpython/modwsgi, on a cluster behind a load
> balancer, or is it your frontend HTTP server?)

Using only CherryPy.

>
> How long have you used CherryPy?
> (The "when" question)

From 0.10 version

>
> Why did you choose CherryPy?
> (While "because its the best" is obviously the answer, a little
> more detail would be nice. ;) )

It's easy to use and allow me to create applications more fast.

Enrico

[Sylvain Hellegouarch]

>> How long have you used CherryPy?
>> (The "when" question)
>
>>From 0.10 version
>

We salute you :)

- Sylvain

[morellik]

;-))

I've my first two applications wrote in cp 0.10. One was for a big
congress of crystallography and the other one is WebNMR, the
application that
I rewrote for CP3.


Enrico

[Michele Cella]

Here we go:

Who is using CherryPy?
Enuan srl an italian based startup I work for

Where are you using Cherrypy?

3408009000.it, a non conventional real estate site
smstraffic.it, coming soon
Enel, sms customer care

What do you do with CherryPy?

Buzzword compliant web applications
Various backend administration tools
As one of the main components embedded in our conversational
application framework

How is CherryPy deployed?
Either Standalone or behind apache/nginx

How long have you used CherryPy?

Indirectly (with TurboGears) since 2.1
Directly since 3.0beta

Why did you choose CherryPy?

Simple and clean, flexible enough, standard compliant, fast
and stable, doesn't get into your way, it does only one thing but does
it well, doesn't impose hard dependencies (like orm, templating...),
nice and responsive development team

Ciao
Michele

[Derek Payton]

> Who is using CherryPy?
Galaxy IT, Inc. -- A small startup in Fresno, CA
http://www.galaxyit.com

> What do you do with CherryPy?

Developing a custom ad server to serve relevant ads in an Adobe Flex
application

> How is CherryPy deployed?
Currently we're using CherryPy's built in server, but we're eventually
going to move to Lighttpd/FastCGI

> How long have you used CherryPy?

About three weeks, this is my first project with CherryPy.

> Why did you choose CherryPy?

I started out in January 2008 with Twisted, but as needs and
requirements changed, Twisted became a bit much. In early March 2008 I
rewrote everything I had from scratch using CherryPy. I chose CherryPy
because it looked simple, and I'd heard only good things about it. I'm
definitely happy with the decision.

[Gloria]

I've used it on multiple projects, so here goes several answers.
I wish I could use it now, but this place loves their PHP5, which isn't horrible, but isn't Python ;)
Gloria
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1)
Who is using CherryPy? QuietCareSystems.com

What do you do with CherryPy? Execute Python algorithms and display results for analysis of RF events measured to make sure an elderly person is moving around their home.

How is CherryPy deployed? Behind Apache

How long have you used CherryPy? 2+ years

Why did you choose CherryPy? Thin and fast, no force-fit into a large and complex framework, Simple paradigm, method names match function names, URL parameters match method parameters, I love the model.

(2)
Who is using CherryPy? TeamPatent.com

What do you do with CherryPy? It is a REST engine for serving JSON to a
Javascript/Dojo front end.

How is CherryPy deployed? Behind Apache.

How long have you used CherryPy? 2+ years.

Why did you choose CherryPy? Speed, simplicity, thin framework.

(3)
Who is using CherryPy? SitePen.com

What do you do with CherryPy? Wrote a test harness for Tsung testing
invocation.

How is CherryPy deployed? Directly.

How long have you used CherryPy? 2+ years

Why did you choose CherryPy? Thin, fast, easy, no big framework model,
clean and elegant Python code.

(4)
Who is using CherryPy? GrrlCamp.org

What do you do with CherryPy? Teach Python web framework principles.

How is CherryPy deployed? behind Apache and directly.

How long have you used CherryPy? 2+ years

Why did you choose CherryPy? Very easy for Newbies to learn and use
out-of-the-box. Excellent teaching tool.

[dbrattli]

Who is using CherryPy: ObexCode (http://www.obexcode.com)

Where are you using Cherrypy?

Web2Phone Project (http://sync.obexcode.com)

What do you do with CherryPy?

Backup/restore service for mobile phones. Synchronization service and
web2portal. Sync mobile phones using SyncML. Also Includes
synchronization with Google Calendar og Contacts. Edit contacts and
calendar content online. CherryPy used by both webportal and for sync
clients.

How is CherryPy deployed?

Have tried them all, but ended up with deploying using mod_wsgi and a
cluster of Apache servers. Uses Ngnix as load-balencer in front of
Apace. This is a really nice configuration since Apache takes care of
(re)starting/stopping CherryPy workers as needed.

How long have you used CherryPy?

For about a year. Started with 2.2.1 and TurboGears, but ended up
"roll your own" on top of CP3 in order to bypass limitations of
TurboGears.

Why did you choose CherryPy?

Fast and few limitations. Like CP3 since it's possible to fine-tune
the configuration for each controller in order to get the best
performance possible. A complex controller (sessions, transactions,
auth, ...) may be slow, but a simple controller can still run at full
speed and don't get the penalty of other complex controllers in the
system.

-- Dag

[Yann Ramin]

> Where are you using Cherrypy?

http://eve-central.com - a popular market aggregation site for the MMO
EVE-Online

> What do you do with CherryPy?

Collect data from a custom client application, store data into a
PostgreSQL instance, do heavy statistics calculations on the data in
response to requests, and display it through an XML data feed (not
XmlRpc) and standard user HTML pages.

The site glues together PostgreSQL, NumPy/SciPy, and CherryPy, along
with Mailman as a secondary service.

>
> How is CherryPy deployed?

Behind mod_proxy

>
> How long have you used CherryPy?
> (The "when" question)

1 month, migrating the 2 year old site from mod_python (which was
causing much grief)

>
> Why did you choose CherryPy?

- Cleanliness
- Lack-of-a-full-stack approach. EVE-Central.com already had a large,
2 year old code base running under mod_python - rewriting everything
from scratch to be trendy and web-framework-compliant would have eaten
far too much time. CherryPy allowed me to do the initial conversion of
the code in a matter of hours, while improving many ugly constructs.
Since the initial conversion, the flexibility of CherryPy and its "use
what you want" approach are helping to grow, refactor and maintain
this legacy code base. Its a pleasure to work with.
- Speed
- Python
- Stability - mod_python was much less stable and memory hungry in a
very high load + mpm_worker scenario. CherryPy not only performs
better even with a single backend server, but uses a fraction of the
memory.

[Dirk Rothe]

> Where are you using Cherrypy?

semantics.de located in aachen, germany

> What do you do with CherryPy?
> (What's your project: a traditional public web site? internal
> web services?)

http frontend for retro-digitization (aka pumping old books to the
web)

http://digitale.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/content/overview
http://www.dilibri.de/content/overview

(sorry, this is only german atm)

> How is CherryPy deployed?
> (Behind modproxy/modpython/modwsgi, on a cluster behind a load
> balancer, or is it your frontend HTTP server?)

production with apache/mod-proxy but development/testing/staging
mostly directly with the embedded http/https servers.

we are evaluating mod_wsgi.

> How long have you used CherryPy?
> (The "when" question)

pretty shortly, since rc 1 of 3.0

> Why did you choose CherryPy?

Because its only a thin (and fast) layer between the backend
environment and the http frontent. But if you need sophisticated http
mangling mechanisms, they are available with only a minimum of
indirections.

[Chris Miles]

On 19/03/2008, at 7:16 AM, schmichael wrote:
> Who is using CherryPy: (your name)

Chris Miles

> Where are you using Cherrypy?
> (Company or client name. You can of course remain anonymous)

Locayta Limited. London, UK. http://www.locayta.com/

> What do you do with CherryPy?
> (What's your project: a traditional public web site? internal
> web services?)

Various projects, mainly web services, some web sites. Both internal
and public facing. Some projects are based on TurboGears, others with
simpler requirements are CherryPy apps, usually using SQLAlchemy and
Genshi. Our oldest CherryPy app uses Cheetah templates and has been
running in production for 2 years.

One of our newest projects is a Video encoding/storage/delivery
service, http://www.flvio.com/ . It provides a REST API for storing
and managing videos for any web sites that would like to offer Flash
video content, including UGC, without the hassle of encoding, storage
& bandwidth costs. The web site is built on TurboGears and the actual
API is implemented using CherryPy 3.

>
> How is CherryPy deployed?
> (Behind modproxy/modpython/modwsgi, on a cluster behind a load
> balancer, or is it your frontend HTTP server?)

Behind Apache & mod_proxy/mod_proxy_balance behind hardware load
balancer (Inkra).

>
> How long have you used CherryPy?
> (The "when" question)

2 years.

>
> Why did you choose CherryPy?
> (While "because its the best" is obviously the answer, a little
> more detail would be nice. ;) )

Had been using Zope 2 on & off over the years for web projects, but
was never happy with it. When Zope 3 came out I tried to use it for a
project and after pulling my hair out, I moved to CherryPy instead and
never looked back.

Cheers,
Chris Miles

[braydon fuller]

Who is using CherryPy: Braydon Fuller

Where are you using Cherrypy? SFDCenter

What do you do with CherryPy? I have used it in combination with other software to create Sparrow - A free software web revision system. http://sfdcenter.org

How is CherryPy deployed? - Well you could deploy it however you like with some work; I'm currently running it behind an nginx proxy.

How long have you used CherryPy? 5 months

Why did you choose CherryPy? - Because I wanted to get as close experience with developing a desktop like application for the web. Perhaps my favorite part is being able to decorate a function to expose it.

[Jeremy]

Who is using CherryPy: Jeremy Morel
Where are you using Cherrypy? on www.naphtaline.net
What do you do with CherryPy? A bug tracking tool designed for non
tech users (I like to think the interface is very intuitive and
simple).
How is CherryPy deployed? I really don't know. I am just using the
version webfaction.com offers to its clients.
How long have you used CherryPy? For 4 months, more a less a day a
week.
Why did you choose CherryPy? Incredible simplicity, easy to learn,
python : all the "it just works" stuff. And a lot of propaganda from
Sylvain :)

[boost...@googlemail.com]

prima! But one can create a new proect:-(

The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from
fulfilling the request.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/jeremy/lib/python2.4/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 342,
in respond
cherrypy.response.body = self.handler()
File "/home/jeremy/lib/python2.4/cherrypy/_cpdispatch.py", line 15,
in __call__
return self.callable(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
File "/home/jeremy/webapps/cp/projects.py", line 1417, in newProject
cursor.execute(query, (login, m.hexdigest(),
cherrypy.session.get(str(project)+'_projectCode'), mail))
NameError: global name 'project' is not defined

Powered by CherryPy 3.0.0

[Jeremy]

Very sorry to polute the ML with that kind of message :
it now works. The site underwent a pretty heavy change recently, and I
even though I tested all classic functions, I did not thought of
testing the creation of projects. It's fixed. My bad.

Jérémy

On May 21, 6:57 pm, "boostpy2...@yahoo.com.cn"