Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
is macbook pro 2012 too slow for web development
- Thread starter cktai
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have a late 2011 MBP base 13" and it works fine. It's slow at times and obviously it's not going to be great with high-performance apps (it gets hot and fan runs heavily just with flash and HD videos sometimes). However, I think it would be fine for web development. I'm able to edit 1080p video with not much lag at all in FCP. Affinity Photo (a Photoshop alternative) also runs pretty smoothly. If I can do that stuff, I don't see why you couldn't do some coding/web development with it. What applications are you using?
- Which MBP?
13-inch MBP retina
15-inch MBP unibody
13-inch MBP retina
- With what specifications?
- What Apps will you use?
The one I could afford is 13-inch MBP unibody with 4GB RAM and 500GB harddisk. I would proably make it into 8GB RAM. The app I use is XAMPP for wordpress development, Adobe creative suite, sublime text, Indesign...I am a web designer and developer (I am trying to be..). please give me more advice. The one I like is sold for $500 something and the latest MBP cost more than 1K. I don't think I would do any video work at all. Thanks.
It is a capable computer, but you will have two bottlenecks (and hence upgrade expenses):
- RAM - you would likely need 8GB, and possibly could benefit from 16GB
- Hard Drive - the HDD is extremely slow - you will want a SSD, as the current version of macOS doesn't do well with HDDs, and some of the Apps you run will literally be crawling with a HDD
Best Buy is having a sale on brand new 2015 MBPs for $1,000 (and $900 for open-box models). I'm not sure what your budget is, but after you factor in the price of the RAM and SSD upgrade, the difference between the used system you are considering and a brand new one becomes a lot less, plus this already has 8GB of RAM, a SSD, weighs a pound less, plus the much nicer retina display, and it comes with a warranty and eligibility to purchase the extended 3 year warranty. I'm not sure if that is feasible or not, but I'm just throwing it out there to show the options.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-m...-flash-storage-silver/8532557.p?skuId=8532557
Further, Best Buy is selling new MacBook Airs for $750 ($650 open box) - this comes with an i5, 8GB of RAM, and a 128 GB SSD. This brand new machine with a factory warranty may be less than the 5 year old model you are considering.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-m...-flash-storage-silver/6443034.p?skuId=6443034
It will work just fine for web-development. I do some dev time on mine and its plenty fast. Pre-retina models are also upgradable. Mine has 16GB of ram and an SSD in it. Easily keeps up with the newer Macs in everything I do.
Thanks so much ZapNZs! your information is very helpful and I didn't realize best buy has such a good deal! I would probably consider macbook air one ($650)! It may look less powerful but it is not my main machine (I am a window user with a i5 16GB RAM). Basically I need a mac to do coding for job interview or presentation. I lived in Long Island, new york and need a machine with me to do freelance onsite web design job in Manhattan. macbook air seems a good choice with limited budget.
Is the used MBP you are looking at the i5 or the i7?
The performance of that MacBook Air should be far superior to the performance of the MacBook Pro you are considering in its current configuration (provided it is the i5 model.) If you were to buy the i5 Pro and upgrade the RAM to 8GB and go to a SSD, the performance should be roughly the same to the Air, because both would have an i5 CPU with around the same capability, both would have 8GB of RAM at the same clock speed, and both would have a SSD capable of over 500 MB/s. However, the MBA would still have a faster SSD and its Intel 6000 graphics are better than the Intel 4000 graphics in that particular MBP.
It's a nice computer, even though it doesn't have the retina display. If you are going to be carrying the computer around a lot, you will quickly appreciate the smaller form factor and long battery life.
I am only looking at i5 model.
One concern about MBA is the 128GB harddisk. I think if it is for development for one or two project it is fine. I may have to buy a external hard drive for more space. I used to have a 11 macbook air and I love it so much.
One concern about MBA is the 128GB harddisk. I think if it is for development for one or two project it is fine. I may have to buy a external hard drive for more space. I used to have a 11 macbook air and I love it so much.
Is the used MBP you are looking at the i5 or the i7?
The performance of that MacBook Air should be far superior to the performance of the MacBook Pro you are considering in its current configuration (provided it is the i5 model.) If you were to buy the i5 Pro and upgrade the RAM to 8GB and go to a SSD, the performance should be roughly the same to the Air, because both would have an i5 CPU with around the same capability, both would have 8GB of RAM at the same clock speed, and both would have a SSD capable of over 500 MB/s. However, the MBA would still have a faster SSD and its Intel 6000 graphics are better than the Intel 4000 graphics in that particular MBP.
It's a nice computer, even though it doesn't have the retina display. If you are going to be carrying the computer around a lot, you will quickly appreciate the smaller form factor and long battery life.
The good news is that, since it has a SD card slot, you can add a micro SD card + a flush adapter (or a 2-in-1) to add on as much as 256 GB more. The Transcend Jetdrive Lite is dirt cheap considering it is superior quality MLC flash, and it sits flush inside the port. Because it is MLC flash, unlike the cheaper TLC SD cards, it is more appropriate for longer term storage of more important files.
https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Je...&qid=1487539762&sr=1-2&keywords=jetdrive+lite
As for an external hard drive, if you want the 2.5 inch size and want huge capacity for cheap, I highly recommend this
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1250980-REG/wd_wd10jplx_wd_black_mobile.html
inside one of the shock-resistant aluminum USB 3 enclosures
If you want an external SSD, one lower-cost TLC-based SSD that has a good reputation is this:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1273747-REG/crucial_ct1050mx300ssd1_mx300_1tb.html
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I would honestly not get a MBP or MBA pre circa now because they have non retina displays. I work full time as a full stack developer and the sites we are pushing out are all high density enabled sites.
Plus, we use vagrant / homestead VMs as our local Dev environment and we usually run with 16Gb of ram.
Plus, we use vagrant / homestead VMs as our local Dev environment and we usually run with 16Gb of ram.
Would you recommend any macbook to do website for retina display?
[doublepost=1487545818][/doublepost]good suggestion! for budget reason MBA 13 seems the best choice so far.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
You could use a normal display but it's not the same as developing on a Retina display because you will have a sense of how it will eventually look on a high density display and of course when you're staring at code for 8 hours a day, your IDE or text editor will look really nice with crisp text.
This is just bad advice.
I mean, yeah the Retina display is better, but ... External monitor? I'm an engineer, and my 2012 MBP is permanently hooked up an 27" external monitor. 15" is way too small to do serious work anyhow imo.
You'll be totally fine.
<- 13" mid-2012 MBP on Sierra here
The only drag would be if you want to run virtual machines and have a traditional platter HD -- but why? Just front-end web stuff? Don't need any virtual machines for that.
I would be doing just fine using my wife's MB Air, too.
<- 13" mid-2012 MBP on Sierra here
The only drag would be if you want to run virtual machines and have a traditional platter HD -- but why? Just front-end web stuff? Don't need any virtual machines for that.
I would be doing just fine using my wife's MB Air, too.
Lots of people use 15" as their primary machine. All I'm saying is, as a web developer you will be handed @2x and @3x graphics now and it will make your job easier.
Since he doesn't want this as his primary machine and he already has a desktop for work, I just don't see why he would fork the money for an external monitor when it can be used to buy something with a Retina display.
Hi,
agree with you. I am not going to do some fancy projects for brands like Nike or some cool fashion brand. I mostly do small website or some small e-commerce site with Wordpress or Drupal. I am just a web designer who try to learn front end coding on my own. I just need a starter machine for software like sketch or some mac only web development tool to make a living in New York City. It is pain in the ass to install Ruby or NPM to window.
Macbook air should be more than enough for my project.
yes if I make more money I would like to take macbook pro retina.
agree with you. I am not going to do some fancy projects for brands like Nike or some cool fashion brand. I mostly do small website or some small e-commerce site with Wordpress or Drupal. I am just a web designer who try to learn front end coding on my own. I just need a starter machine for software like sketch or some mac only web development tool to make a living in New York City. It is pain in the ass to install Ruby or NPM to window.
Macbook air should be more than enough for my project.
yes if I make more money I would like to take macbook pro retina.
Consider getting a used mini unless you need to be mobile. A 2010-2012 MacMini, a 24 inch monitor, and a good keyboard are a great low cost combo (but the 2012 can be a bit pricey) for web development. You are going to be text editing of raw HTML, CSS files, Bootstrap, and some sort of javascript framework (Angular, etc.). You want plenty of real estate to be able to run your browser in debug mode (f12 on chrome and ff) to figure out at 2 AM why that CSS style is not working!!!
Last edited:
That's a great suggestion to low cost mac experience. I checked that it is sold in ebay for around $250 to $300.
Sounds like you are a front end guy too! Actually I need a mobile machine to use it on the site for any freelance project for agency. I need to run tools like sketch, adobe creative suite, and some other IDE for web development. I figure out that macbook pro 2012 or macbook air new is the best option I could have considering my very limited budget.
At home I may stick to my i5 window 10 machine with 16GB RAM.
Sounds like you are a front end guy too! Actually I need a mobile machine to use it on the site for any freelance project for agency. I need to run tools like sketch, adobe creative suite, and some other IDE for web development. I figure out that macbook pro 2012 or macbook air new is the best option I could have considering my very limited budget.
At home I may stick to my i5 window 10 machine with 16GB RAM.