Software behind Facebook

Given its massive scale, it isn’t surprising that Facebook has cooked up some custom software. What I just learned – which is encouraging – is that Facebook is sharing some of its technologies. One particularly interesting example is HipHop. This software takes the PHP code used by many modern websites (including those running on WordPress and MediaWiki) and compiles it into highly optimized C++ which servers process more quickly. While I don’t know much about it, it seems like something that WordPress might be able to usefully incorporate or reproduce in a future version.

Facebook also contributed to highly distributed database Cassandra, which Twitter also uses, as well as a number of other pieces of open source software.

It is nice to see Facebook providing potentially useful code to the wider web community.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. Between 2005 and 2007 I completed an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. I worked for five years for the Canadian federal government, including completing the Accelerated Economist Training Program, and then completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023. View all posts by Milan