Node.js Performance Optimization Talk, 2025

Overview

This repository contains the code examples I used in the Node.js Performance Optimization Talk. The examples demonstrate common performance issues in Node.js applications and how to solve them progressively.

The example is a simple product catalog API that showcases three main performance issues:

• Blocking Event Loop: CPU-intensive calculations and synchronous operations blocking the main thread
• Promise Chain: Sequential execution of independent async operations that could be processed simultaneously
• Missing Cache: Repeated expensive operations that could benefit from caching

Branches

• main branch contains the initial example with all three performance issues
• async branch shows the first optimization step - making operations asynchronous
• unchained branch demonstrates simultaneous processing of independent operations
• cached branch shows the final optimized version with caching

Run the Example

git clone https://github.com/vpukhanov/node-profiling-talk
cd node-profiling-talk
npm install
npm start

Then in another terminal:

# Test the unoptimized version
npm run load-test