Language Bindings for Erlang Again (Opinion)

[Mickael Remond]

* Joe Armstrong (AL/EAB) <joe.armstrong@REDACTED> [2006-06-07 10:16:58 +0200]:

> In Erlang you spawn one Erlang process/connection which is a very
> lightweight
> operation - so FOR WEB SERVERS Erlang is *much* faster than C or php or
> whatever.

This is the impression you get when comparing Yaws to Apache.
However, to be fair, I had the opportunity to see Zeus web server in
action recently (http://www.zeus.com/products/zws/).

It has been a shock. This server is really, really fast.
It was more than three time faster than Yaws on simple static pages.
(13000 requests per second for Zeus versus 3000 to 4000 requests per
seconds for Yaws on the same hardware).

To be fair, I have been told they use lot of kernel level optimisation
(Like zero-copy between streams for example).
A coworker tried to write a slimed down minimal (=everything hardcoded)
HTTP server version, serving a hardcoded page in the code in Erlang and
the result was about 8000 requests served per seconds.
This gives you an idea of the level of performance of a web server like
Zeus. 
I am not criticizing Yaws, but just wanted to share recent comparisons.

-- 
Mickaël Rémond
 http://www.process-one.net/