How well does Document Converter scale and handle high load?

We are often asked about the speed of the Document Converter and how long it takes to convert a file. While it might be tempting to provide a simple metric, the reality is that conversion speed depends on several factors, including:

• The number of processor cores on your server.

• The number of servers in your environment.

• The type of documents being converted.

• The complexity of the documents.

• The number of concurrent users.

These variables can significantly influence performance, making it difficult to provide a one-size-fits-all answer.

For more information, see our Official performance metrics for PDF converters.

The Document Converter is designed with scalability and concurrency in mind, capable of handling hundreds of transactions per minute under optimal conditions. However, achieving this performance requires appropriate hardware—such as multiple cores and servers—and is unlikely on a single-core server processing complex documents like the King James Bible.

By default, the system allows two parallel instances of each document type to run simultaneously. This setting can be adjusted in the configuration file to better suit your environment and workload requirements.

For more information, see Optimizing Document Converter concurrency settings.

To enhance scalability, you can deploy multiple conversion servers and group them under a single hostname using a standard HTTP load balancer. For example, you can use the free Network Load Balancing Service (NLBS) included with Windows Server to distribute workloads efficiently across servers.

For more information, see Guidebooks for SharePoint Document Converter.