# Do categories scale?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-categories-scale/45223
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [June 3, 2016, 9:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-categories-scale/45223 "2016-06-03T21:23:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cappslock](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cappslock)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2016, 9:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-categories-scale/45223/1 "2016-06-03T21:23:34Z")
Hi! I’m new to Discourse and evaluating it for a client who is interested in using it as the backend for a commenting system (we can’t use the front-end, because reasons).
For our use case, we might want to generate a large number of categories (say, in the hundreds of thousands). I’m wondering if, at the API level, this is expected to scale.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2016, 9:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-categories-scale/45223/2 "2016-06-03T21:32:27Z")
No – you would use tags for that. Categories are like walls. Build 4 and you have a nice house; build 24 and you have a maze.
Tags are much lighter weight structures than categories and more flexible.
---
### Author:  [@prod\_discourse\_admin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/prod_discourse_admin)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2016, 2:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-categories-scale/45223/3 "2016-06-04T14:06:58Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> Categories are like walls. Build 4 and you have a nice house; build 24 and you have a maze.
I’m stealing that quote to explain this to new users , it’s an excellent analogy, ty!
---
### Author:  [@cappslock](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cappslock)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/do-categories-scale/45223/4 "2016-06-05T20:12:07Z")
Thanks for the reply! I suspect tags are better for our purpose anyways; I wasn’t aware of them as a feature.