ErlyWeb vs. Ruby on Rails EC2 Performance Showdown (opens in new tab)

(yarivsblog.com)

13 pointsBitGeek18y ago11 comments

I loved rails until I tried to implement something non-trivial in it and realized it was just absolute crap. I suspect it is this way because it came out of the minds of designers rather than programmers...and DHH's attitude is "F You" so it will never improve... but maybe I'm just spoiled having used WebObjects.

I ended up writing my own web app platform in about 3 months-- custom language, integrated persistence engine and http-server, no-thought-required concurrency... so I'm happy now. I'm just kinda surprised that more people haven't done this.

If you don't have the time to do your own solution, use Erlyweb (which is hampered by being "Rails for erlang") or WebObjects (which is hampered by running on Java).

Anyway, I expect that the outperformance of Erlyweb compared to rails will be more dramatic-- in excess of 10 to 1, when running a more complex application, and even higher when running on a multicore cpu.

11 comments

tx18y ago

The last commenter on the original thread is absolutely right: Rails follows different "concurrency model", i.e. it needs multiple processes to run well, especially on multi-core CPUs. He needs to create a cluster of 4-6 mongrels on 2-core CPU and the margin will shrink.

yariv18y ago

This is the next thing I'll test.

tptacek18y ago

... and? Rails forks. It's slow even for a Ruby framework. You could beat both ErlyWeb and Rails handily in C, if your priorities were that far out of whack. Nobody uses Rails for its speed.

rontr18y ago

It's just about speed as much as how much abuse your server can take before it stops serving.

nickb18y ago

Servers is absolutely the LAST thing you should worry about today. They cost next to nothing when you compare their cost to the cost of development.

If you need more performance out of Rails, create another VPS and add the mongrels to a cluster. Problem solved.

srini18y ago

EC2 instances are virtualized machines, right? What about differing CPU contention (i.e. steal times) based on the load of other virtual machines on the same box?

I don't think the results would change much, but to be safe, I think you should run this comparison on multiple random ec2 instances, to account for differing external loads.

BitGeekOP18y ago

Interesting, my comments about Rails, ERlyweb and WebObjects were deleted, and my title was re-written.

Tichy18y ago

The comment is always lost if you also submit an URL.

srini18y ago

Any idea how they compare when using rails caching? Is there an equivalent in ErlyWeb?

I'd be curious to see the numbers, as the gap could go either way. I'm not sure if rails is worse with threads or worse with rendering or both.

DocSavage18y ago

The author compiled ErlyWeb and YAWS with HiPE (http://www.it.uu.se/research/group/hipe). Are there any issues with using HiPE instead of the Erlang/OTP compiler?

yariv18y ago

I will try running the test after recompiling without HiPE and see what difference it makes.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

ErlyWeb vs. Ruby on Rails EC2 Performance Showdown (opens in new tab)

(yarivsblog.com)

13 pointsBitGeek18y ago11 comments

If you don't have the time to do your own solution, use Erlyweb (which is hampered by being "Rails for erlang") or WebObjects (which is hampered by running on Java).

11 comments

tx18y ago

yariv18y ago

This is the next thing I'll test.

tptacek18y ago

... and? Rails forks. It's slow even for a Ruby framework. You could beat both ErlyWeb and Rails handily in C, if your priorities were that far out of whack. Nobody uses Rails for its speed.

rontr18y ago

It's just about speed as much as how much abuse your server can take before it stops serving.

nickb18y ago

Servers is absolutely the LAST thing you should worry about today. They cost next to nothing when you compare their cost to the cost of development.

If you need more performance out of Rails, create another VPS and add the mongrels to a cluster. Problem solved.

srini18y ago

EC2 instances are virtualized machines, right? What about differing CPU contention (i.e. steal times) based on the load of other virtual machines on the same box?

I don't think the results would change much, but to be safe, I think you should run this comparison on multiple random ec2 instances, to account for differing external loads.

BitGeekOP18y ago

Interesting, my comments about Rails, ERlyweb and WebObjects were deleted, and my title was re-written.

Tichy18y ago

The comment is always lost if you also submit an URL.

srini18y ago

Any idea how they compare when using rails caching? Is there an equivalent in ErlyWeb?

I'd be curious to see the numbers, as the gap could go either way. I'm not sure if rails is worse with threads or worse with rendering or both.

DocSavage18y ago

The author compiled ErlyWeb and YAWS with HiPE (http://www.it.uu.se/research/group/hipe). Are there any issues with using HiPE instead of the Erlang/OTP compiler?

yariv18y ago

I will try running the test after recompiling without HiPE and see what difference it makes.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse