Maximum (recommended) nodes on a server

Question

I know that if you use the datadir option and a different JSON-RPC port and peer-to-peer port for each node you can run multiple nodes on a single machine. Is there a recommended limit to the number of nodes one can or should run on a single machine before the performance starts to degrade? I can appreciate that this may be subjective because it is likely based on the specs of the machine and various other factors, but I'm wondering if you guys have tested this at all. Thanks!

Answer 1

They're just separate processes, so there's no particular limit. It mainly depends on your server's specification and how many transactions your blockchain is processing (since each transaction is processed by every node). So I'd recommend firing up a couple of nodes, pushing your expected maximum workload, then continuing to fire up more nodes while running top (assuming you're on Linux) to see how your system is handling it. Let us know what you find!