Does visitor count for a Rails app affect RAM usage that much?

Question

I'm installing a relatively large Rails app for my client (consumes 1GB of RAM with just me using it). It uses Ubuntu, Nginx, and MySQL. If, say 10,000 users use the app simultaneously, would the RAM usage change that much? That is, what amount of RAM do you think I would need to handle 10,000 users?

What about for 100,000 users?

I know it really depends on the app itself, but any ballpark answer would be fine. Thank you :)

Answer 1

Well, as you said it depends on the app itself.

Have you looked at any easy-to-use load testing tools for your site?

This link has some interesting discussion and comparison of a few tools:

http://blog.feedmarker.com/2005/12/20/load-testing-the-rails/