Table of Contents

• Scope
  • Hello World
  • Disclaimer
• Languages
  • Ruby
  • Python
  • JavaScript
  • Dart
  • Elixir
  • Crystal
  • Nim
  • GO
• Tools
  • Wrk
  • Platform
  • RAM and CPU
• Benchmarks
  • Results
  • Puma
  • Gunicorn with Meinheld
  • Node Cluster
  • Dart HttpServer
  • Plug with Cowboy
  • Crystal HTTP
  • httpbeast
  • GO ServeMux
  • Hyper

Scope

The idea behind this repository is to benchmark different languages implementation of HTTP server.

Hello World

The application i tested is minimal: the HTTP version of the Hello World example.
This approach allows including languages i barely know, since it is pretty easy to find such implementation online.
If you're looking for more complex examples, you will have better luck with the TechEmpower benchmarks.

Disclaimer

Please do take the following numbers with a grain of salt: it is not my intention to promote one language over another basing on micro-benchmarks.
Indeed you should never pick a language just basing on its presumed performance.

Languages

I have became lazy with years and just adopt languages i can install via homebrew, sorry Oracle/MS. This also allows me to benchmark them in a single session, thus trying to use an environment as neutral as possible. Where possible i just relied on the standard library, but when it is not production-ready (i.e. Ruby, Python).

Ruby

Ruby 3.0.0 is used. Ruby is a general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language, focused on simplicity and productivity.

Python

Python 3.9.1 is used. Python is a widely used high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language.

JavaScript

Node.js version 15.5.0 is used. Node.js is based on the V8 JavaScript engine, optimized by Google and supporting most of the new language's features.

Dart

Dart version 2.10.4 is used. Dart is a VM based, object-oriented, sound typed language using a C-style syntax that transcompiles optionally into JavaScript.

Elixir

Elixir 1.11.2 is used. Elixir is a purely functional language that runs on the Erlang VM and is strongly influenced by the Ruby syntax.

Crystal

Crystal 0.35.1 is used. Crystal has a syntax very close to Ruby, but brings some desirable features such as statically typing and ahead of time (AOT) compilation.

Nim

Nim 1.4.2 is used. Nim is an AOT, Python inspired, statically typed language that comes with an ambitious compiler aimed to produce code in C, C++, JavaScript or ObjectiveC.

GO

GO 1.15.6 is used. GO is an AOT language that focuses on simplicity and offers a broad standard library with CSP constructs built in.

Tools

Wrk

I used wrk as the loading tool.
I measured each application server six times, picking the best lap (but for VM based languages demanding longer warm-up).

wrk -t 4 -c 100 -d30s --timeout 2000 http://0.0.0.0:9292

Platform

These benchmarks are recorded on a MacBook PRO 13 2019 having these specs:

• macOS Catalina
• 1.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
• 8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

RAM and CPU

I measured RAM and CPU consumption by using macOS Activity Monitor dashboard and recording max consumption peak.
For the languages relying on pre-forking parallelism i reported the average consumption by taking a snapshot during the stress period.

Benchmarks

Results

Language	App Server	Requests/sec	RAM (MB)	CPU (%)
Ruby+MJIT	Puma	36455.88	> 100	> 580
Elixir	Plug with Cowboy	46416.25	50.5	583.8
Ruby	Puma	47975.36	> 100	> 580
Dart	Dart HttpServer	59335.33	193.2	429.1
JavaScript	Node Cluster	87208.47	> 200	> 240
GO	GO ServeMux	103847.10	10.0	429.1
Python	Gunicorn with Meinheld	120105.65	> 40	> 380
Nim	httpbeast	128257.98	11.4	99.6
Crystal	Crystal HTTP	132699.78	8.5	246.7

Puma

I tested Ruby by using a plain Rack application served by Puma.

Bootstrap

RUBYOPT='--jit' puma -w 8 -t 2 --preload servers/rack_server.ru

Gunicorn with Meinheld

I tested Python by using Gunicorn spawning Meinheld workers with a plain WSGI compliant server.

Bootstrap

cd servers
gunicorn -w 4 -k meinheld.gmeinheld.MeinheldWorker -b :9292 wsgi_server:app

Node Cluster

I used the cluster module included into Node's standard library.

Bootstrap

node servers/node_server.js

Dart HttpServer

I used the async HTTP server embedded into the Dart standard library and compiled it with dart2native AOT compiler.

Bootstrap

dart2native servers/dart_server.dart -k aot
dartaotruntime servers/dart_server.aot

Plug with Cowboy

I tested Elixir by using Plug library that provides a Cowboy adapter.

Bootstrap

cd servers/plug_server
MIX_ENV=prod mix compile
MIX_ENV=prod mix run --no-halt

Crystal HTTP

I used Crystal HTTP server standard library, enabling parallelism by using the preview_mt flag.

Bootstrap

crystal build -Dpreview_mt --release servers/crystal_server.cr
./crystal_server

httpbeast

To test Nim i opted for the httpbeast library: an asynchronous server relying on Nim HTTP standard library.

Bootstrap

nim c -d:release --threads:on servers/httpbeast_server.nim
./servers/httpbeast_server

GO ServeMux

I used the HTTP ServeMux GO standard library.

Bootstrap

go run servers/servemux_server.go