Rails and Perl - Performance

Rails
1

First off, I’m not trying to ignite a language/tool war here.

mod_perl configured correctly really can push out the pages.
Apache + Mongrel (Cluster) configured correctly can push out the pages,
but not to the extent of mod_perl.

It it foreseable that we will see the same performance out of Apache and
Mongrel as mod_perl? Is LiteSpeed’s LSAPI server any faster than Apache

  • Mongrel?
2

On 10/4/06, Jessica F. [email protected] wrote:

First off, I’m not trying to ignite a language/tool war here.

mod_perl configured correctly really can push out the pages.
Apache + Mongrel (Cluster) configured correctly can push out the pages,
but not to the extent of mod_perl.

It it foreseable that we will see the same performance out of Apache and
Mongrel as mod_perl? Is LiteSpeed’s LSAPI server any faster than Apache

  • Mongrel?

It’s completely unrealistic to expect that rails will be as mature as
something like mod perl + template toolkit/Mason when it comes to
performance. Any platform that gets widespread use improves over
time, it’s pretty much a given. Also, you can’t compare mod perl
directly to rails, they don’t fulfill the same purpose. Mod perl is
probably more comparable to mongrel in the function it serves, with
Template Toolkit/Mason being the template engine, and various other
perl modules taking care of session management and database
connections. And you have to put all these pieces together yourself
and know a lot more about how everything works then you do with rails.

3

Jessica F. wrote:

First off, I’m not trying to ignite a language/tool war here.

mod_perl configured correctly really can push out the pages.
Apache + Mongrel (Cluster) configured correctly can push out the pages,
but not to the extent of mod_perl.

It it foreseable that we will see the same performance out of Apache and
Mongrel as mod_perl? Is LiteSpeed’s LSAPI server any faster than Apache

  • Mongrel?

The Ruby interpreter is slower than Perl. That will not change until,
perhaps, Ruby 2.0. It isn’t a mod_perl vs. mongrel thing.

-matthew

4

On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 13:33:52 -0700
snacktime [email protected] wrote:

Mongrel as mod_perl? Is LiteSpeed’s LSAPI server any faster than Apache
connections. And you have to put all these pieces together yourself
and know a lot more about how everything works then you do with rails.

I think another way to say what snacktime is talking about is to simply
point out that Rails is a FULL STACK system whereas mod_perl is just a
way to run perl. The equality is probably more of:

  1. mongrel by itself vs. apache+mod_perl
  2. rails+mongrel vs. mod_perl+mason+(whatever perl uses for AR, simply
    restful, etc.)

With the mongrel against mod_perl you’d create the simplest action for
each and then test them out with a tool like httperf. This would be
your baseline performance. For Mongrel it’d be something simple like:

class TestHandler < Mongrel::HttpHandler
def process(req, resp)
resp.start {|h,b| b.write(“test”) }
end
end

Fill that out with a bit of Configurator (see examples/simpletest.rb)
and you’ll have your comparable test action. Then run both under the
exact same conditions as in same server, same apache as a front end, no
rewrite rules, etc. Try going against just mongrel see if that’s faster
(sometimes it actually is when compared with older apache mod_proxy).

The point is to be more exact in your comparisons so you avoid shoddy
analysis. You may find that mod_perl rocks Mongrel to the core, but
once you pile on that full stack the performance is horrible compared to
Rails. Java is definitely in this camp where a simple bare bones
Servlet can be way faster that Mongrel, but once you let a Software
Architect Level 10 Grade A build your Acegi+Hibernate+Spring*+JTA+EJB
monstrosity you get miserable performance.

–
Zed A. Shaw, MUDCRAP-CE Master Black Belt Sifu

http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/
http://www.lingr.com/room/3yXhqKbfPy8 – Come get help.

5

Zed A. Shaw wrote:

The point is to be more exact in your comparisons so you avoid shoddy
analysis. You may find that mod_perl rocks Mongrel to the core, but
once you pile on that full stack the performance is horrible compared to

Great information. Thanks Zed.