This document lists Microsoft SharePoint limits that are relevant to Nintex Workflow. For the complete set of Microsoft SharePoint limits, including descriptions of limit types, see the following Microsoft articles.
Software boundaries and limits for SharePoint 2016
Software boundaries and limits for SharePoint 2013
Nintex Workflow has no hard limits for database sizes, numbers of records, or numbers of workflows, sites, lists, libraries, or items.
Content database limits
This section lists relevant SharePoint guidelines for content databases.
Limit | Maximum value | Limit type | Notes |
Content database size (general usage scenarios) | 200 GB per content database | Supported | We strongly recommend limiting the size of content databases to 200 GB, except when the circumstances in the following rows in this table apply. If you are using Remote BLOB Storage (RBS), the total volume of remote BLOB storage and metadata in the content database must not exceed this limit. |
Content database items | 60 million items including documents and list items | Supported | The largest number of items per content database that has been tested on SharePoint Server 2010 is 60 million items, including documents and list items. If you plan to store more than 60 million items in SharePoint Server 2010, you must deploy multiple content databases. |
Site collections per content database | 2,000 recommended 5,000 maximum | Supported | We strongly recommended limiting the number of site collections in a content database to 2,000. However, up to 5,000 site collections in a database are supported. These limits relate to speed of upgrade. The larger the number of site collections in a database, the slower the upgrade. The limit on the number of site collections in a database is subordinate to the limit on the size of a content database that has more than one site collection (200 GB). Therefore, as the number of site collections in a database increases, the average size of the site collections it contains must decrease. Exceeding the 2,000 site collection limit puts you at risk of longer downtimes during upgrades. If you plan to exceed 2,000 site collections, we recommend that you have a clear upgrade strategy, and obtain additional hardware to speed up upgrades and software updates that affect databases. To set the warning level for the number of sites in a content database, use the Windows PowerShell cmdlet Set-SPContentDatabase with the -WarningSiteCount parameter. For more information, see Set-SPContentDatabase. |
Site collection limits
This section lists relevant SharePoint guidelines for site collections.
Limit | Maximum value | Limit type | Notes |
Web site | 250,000 per site collection | Supported | The maximum recommended number of sites and subsites is 250,000 sites. You can create a very large total number of Web sites by nesting subsites. For example, in a shallow hierarchy with 100 sites, each with 1,000 subsites, you would have a total of 100,000 Web sites. Or a deep hierarchy with 100 sites, each with 10 subsite levels would also contain a total of 100,000 Web sites. |
Site collection size | Maximum size of the content database | Supported | A site collection can be as large as the content database size limit for the applicable usage scenario. In general, we strongly recommend limiting the size of site collections to 100 GB for the following reasons:
|
List and library limits
This section lists relevant SharePoint guidelines for lists and libraries. For more information, see Designing large lists and maximizing list performance (SharePoint Server 2010) .
Limit | Maximum value | Limit type | Notes |
File size | 2 GB | Boundary | The default maximum file size is 50 MB. This can be increased up to 2 GB, however a large volume of very large files can affect farm performance. |
List view threshold | 5,000 | Threshold | Specifies the maximum number of list or library items that a database operation, such as a query, can process at the same time outside the daily time window set by the administrator during which queries are unrestricted. |
Subsite | 2,000 per site view | Threshold | The interface for enumerating subsites of a given Web site does not perform well as the number of subsites surpasses 2,000. Similarly, the All Site Content page and the Tree View Control performance will decrease significantly as the number of subsites grows. |
Workflow limits
This section lists relevant SharePoint guidelines for workflow.
Limit | Maximum value | Limit type | Notes |
Workflow postpone threshold | 15 | Threshold | 15 is the maximum number of workflows allowed to be executing against a content database at the same time, excluding instances that are running in the timer service. When this threshold is reached, new requests to activate workflows will be queued to be run by the workflow timer service later. As non-timer execution is completed, new requests will count against this threshold. This is limit can be configured by using the Set-SPFarmConfig Windows PowerShell cmdlet. For more information, see Set-SPFarmConfig. Note: This limit does not refer to the total number of workflow instances that can be in progress. Instead, it is the number of instances that are being processed. Increasing this limit increases the throughput of starting and completing workflow tasks but also increases load against the content database and system resources. |
Workflow timer batch size | 100 | Threshold | The number of events that each run of the workflow timer job will pick up and deliver to workflows. It is configurable by using Windows PowerShell. To allow for additional events, you can run additional instances of the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service. |
