The Battle for Performance Supremacy: Laravel Octane vs Node.js
In the ever-evolving landscape of software engineering, performance plays a critical role in shaping our technology choices. Two popular technologies, Laravel Octane and Node.js, have emerged as high-performance solutions for building web applications. In this article, we’ll embark on a journey to build different HTTP servers using Swoole, Open Swoole, RoadRunner, Node.js, AdonisJS, and Laravel. We’ll then benchmark and compare their load test analysis to gain valuable insights into their performance.
Node.js vs. Laravel Octane: A Tale of Two Runtimes
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment built on Google Chrome’s V8 engine, designed to execute JavaScript code outside a web browser. It operates in a single-threaded event loop using non-blocking I/O, optimizing throughput and scalability in web apps with many I/O operations, real-time features, and more. Node.js is ideal for:
- Real-time applications
- Scalable applications
- High-Concurrency
- Microservices
- Proxy servers and Reverse Proxies
Laravel Octane, on the other hand, is a package introduced in Laravel 8 that enhances the performance of Laravel applications. Octane achieves this by using one of the following extensions:
- Swoole: A PHP community library extension written in C/C++ that provides high-performance, event-driven, scalable, concurrent TCP, UDP, Unix Socket, HTTP, WebSocket services with PHP.
- Open Swoole: A fork of Swoole that supports gRPC, Websocket, MQTT, and more.
- RoadRunner: A Composer package that uses a Go server as a load balancer, enabling PHP applications to run as separate worker processes.
Benchmarking Node.js and Octane: A Performance Showdown
To evaluate the performance of Node.js and Octane, we’ll focus on the following aspects:
- Evaluating latency: We’ll assess the latency of each HTTP server with a simple response from the server.
- Measuring latency with external services: We’ll assess the latency of each HTTP server when calling an external service.
Installing Open Swoole and Setting Up the Project Structure
To install Open Swoole, we can use PECL or Docker. Before installing, ensure that PHP is already installed, preferably version 7.4 or higher. We’ll create a project folder named laravel-vs-octane to house all our source code and project files.
Installing and Configuring the HTTP Servers
We’ll install and configure the following HTTP servers:
- Open Swoole HTTP server
- Swoole HTTP server
- RoadRunner HTTP server
- Node.js server
- AdonisJS
- Laravel Octane with Swoole
Load Test Performance Analysis
We’ll use Artillery for our load test, creating a load test config that can be used for all our servers. We’ll measure the latency for each server during the load test, with 10 virtual users or connections per second for Node.js and 20 virtual users or connections per second for Laravel Octane and AdonisJS.
The Verdict: Performance Insights and Takeaways
The load test results revealed that both frameworks, AdonisJS and Laravel Octane with Swoole, were able to effectively handle an average of 20 requests per second. However, it’s worth noting that real-world performance tests could be more demanding. Interestingly, we observed a close performance similarity between them.
While choosing between Laravel Octane and Node.js is an important decision, optimizing database operations and external service interactions will likely have a more significant impact on overall application performance. Prioritizing these aspects will help ensure the smooth and efficient functioning of the application, regardless of the chosen server or framework.