Yet another Node Vs PHP+Apache

When they said Node JS , they said about performance. They said about concurrency. They said about non-blocking I/O. I thought of giving a try to visualizing that in comparing with other languages and see if Node is really better in some way.

I will try here to explore the 2 main features of Node that make it win in certain scenarios.

1. Non-Blocking I/O: – In a typical application where we need to perform 3 tasks we simple execute them this way

task1();

task2();

task3();

Now task3() will not be executed until task2() is completed and task2() may take long time depending on its operation and so execution of task3() will be blocked. So in a scenario where all these jobs / tasks are independent to each other and can run in parallel, this sequential paradigm won’t fit practically.

Node fits here perfectly. Node supports callbacks, that means calls are asynchronous and non-blocking. The task2() will not block task3() or in other words “a statement in Node will never wait for another I/O to be finished.”

I created a similar scenario in Node

var http = require('http');
var resp = function doResp()

{

console.log(“Second task executed..”);

}

http.createServer(function (req, res) {

console.log(“Task One exeuted..”); // This is task 1

setTimeout(resp,2000); //This is actually how callback is utilized

/* Below statements are task3*//

res.writeHead(200, {‘Content-Type’: ‘text/plain’});

res.end(“Page content is loaded but request is yet processing task 2 in back ground…”);

console.log(“Task three executed..”);

}).listen(9999);

The above simple node code has main 3 tasks to do as we planned.

Task one will print a message on console.

Task two is a Time consuming task takes 2 seconds and at the end it will display message on console.

Task three writes the response to user and also displays a message on console.

This line “ setTimeout(resp,2000);” is where actually callback is used. So the actual function is being passed as parameter to setTimeout function , that means after 2000 millisecond the function doResp() will be invoked. Which is stored in a variable resp. But the beaut is the whole statement “ setTimeout(resp,2000);” gets executed immediately and next statements start getting executed. Though in parallel sets a timer to execute the callback function after 2 seconds, it doesn’t stop next tasks.

I started the app and hit from browser, and saw on Browser screen the message “

In console I could see the below 2 messages

“Task One exeuted..”
“Task three executed..”

and after 2 seconds I did see the another message came up “Second task executed..”

I am happy with the Non-Blocking I/O (or to me asynchronous) of Node.

2. Concurrency: I am done with verifying nonblocking IO feature. Now I have to see and test concurrency and an overall load test. As suggested by others I used siege for load test simulation.

Wrote a simple Node which reads from a Mysql table and emmits JSON. Wrote another PHP file which does the same thing.

Here to make the response content length similar , I purposefully avoided Chunked transfer Encoding in PHP+Apache.

The table has around 53 records. I did test with few different parameters.

Complete code and database structure is available on Git link provided at the end.

Below are my complete test results. The upper ones are Node and Below are PHP

500 Concurrent users for 5 Minutes with 1 second delay

anirbanb2004@Anisoft-Corporation:~/www/loadTest/siegeLog$ siege -c500 -d1 -t5M -lnode1.log http://localhost:9615
** SIEGE 3.0.5
** Preparing 500 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege…
Lifting the server siege… done.

Transactions: 296509 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 299.75 secs
Data transferred: 830.79 MB
Response time: 0.00 secs
Transaction rate: 989.19 trans/sec
Throughput: 2.77 MB/sec
Concurrency: 4.20
Successful transactions: 296509
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 0.20
Shortest transaction: 0.00

FILE: node1.log

anirbanb2004@Anisoft-Corporation:~/www/loadTest/siegeLog$ siege -c500 -d1 -t5M -lnphp1.log http://localhost/loadTest/PHP/
** SIEGE 3.0.5
** Preparing 500 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege…
Lifting the server siege… done.

Transactions: 298656 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 299.92 secs
Data transferred: 836.80 MB
Response time: 0.00 secs
Transaction rate: 995.79 trans/sec
Throughput: 2.79 MB/sec
Concurrency: 2.27
Successful transactions: 298656
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 0.24
Shortest transaction: 0.00

FILE: nphp1.log

Summary : Not much difference. Concurrency is little higher and Longest transaction is also slightly better but nothing real impressive.

500 Concurrent users for 10 minutes with 1 second delay

anirbanb2004@Anisoft-Corporation:~/www/loadTest/siegeLog$ siege -c500 -d1 -t10M -lnode1.log http://localhost:9615
** SIEGE 3.0.5
** Preparing 500 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege…
Lifting the server siege… done.

Transactions: 594697 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 599.95 secs
Data transferred: 1666.28 MB
Response time: 0.00 secs
Transaction rate: 991.24 trans/sec
Throughput: 2.78 MB/sec
Concurrency: 3.84
Successful transactions: 594697
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 0.20
Shortest transaction: 0.00

FILE: node1.log

anirbanb2004@Anisoft-Corporation:~/www/loadTest/siegeLog$ siege -c500 -d1 -t10M -lnphp1.log http://localhost/loadTest/PHP/
** SIEGE 3.0.5
** Preparing 500 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege…
Lifting the server siege… done.

Transactions: 597276 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 599.97 secs
Data transferred: 1673.50 MB
Response time: 0.00 secs
Transaction rate: 995.51 trans/sec
Throughput: 2.79 MB/sec
Concurrency: 1.94
Successful transactions: 597276
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 0.20
Shortest transaction: 0.00

FILE: nphp1.log

Summary: Node is still better at concurrency but yet nothing so impressive so far. I am still in love with my PHP+Apache

500 Concurrent Users for 15 minutes with 1 second delay

anirbanb2004@Anisoft-Corporation:~/www/loadTest/siegeLog$ siege -c500 -d1 -t15M -lnode1.log http://localhost:9615
** SIEGE 3.0.5
** Preparing 500 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege…
Lifting the server siege… done.

Transactions: 892874 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 899.25 secs
Data transferred: 2501.74 MB
Response time: 0.00 secs
Transaction rate: 992.91 trans/sec
Throughput: 2.78 MB/sec
Concurrency: 3.74
Successful transactions: 892874
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 0.25
Shortest transaction: 0.00

FILE: node1.log

anirbanb2004@Anisoft-Corporation:~/www/loadTest/siegeLog$ siege -c500 -d1 -t15M -lnphp1.log http://localhost/loadTest/PHP/
** SIEGE 3.0.5
** Preparing 500 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege…

[error] socket: 1011885824 address is unavailable.: Cannot assign requested address
[error] socket: -213448960 address is unavailable.: Cannot assign requested address
[error] socket: -3631360 address is unavailable.: Cannot assign requested address

Lifting the server siege… done.

Transactions: 893948 hits
Availability: 99.96 %
Elapsed time: 899.70 secs
Data transferred: 2504.75 MB
Response time: 0.00 secs
Transaction rate: 993.61 trans/sec
Throughput: 2.78 MB/sec
Concurrency: 2.25
Successful transactions: 893948
Failed transactions: 335
Longest transaction: 1.01
Shortest transaction: 0.00

FILE: nphp1.log

Summary: PHP breaks for these long running large number of concurrent requests.Server stopped creating threads when it created enough before max outing server’s RAM. But node is standing straight here. Node looks even steady in terms of the parameters.

1K Concurrent users for 10 minutes with 1 Second delay
anirbanb2004@Anisoft-Corporation:~/www/loadTest/siegeLog$ siege -c1000 -d1 -t10M -lnode1.log http://localhost:9615
** SIEGE 3.0.5
** Preparing 1000 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege…
Lifting the server siege… done.

Transactions: 862079 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 599.92 secs
Data transferred: 2415.46 MB
Response time: 0.20 secs
Transaction rate: 1436.99 trans/sec
Throughput: 4.03 MB/sec
Concurrency: 281.62
Successful transactions: 862079
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 0.55
Shortest transaction: 0.00

FILE: node1.log

anirbanb2004@Anisoft-Corporation:~/www/loadTest/siegeLog$ siege -c1000 -d1 -t10M -lnphp1.log http://localhost/loadTest/PHP/
** SIEGE 3.0.5
** Preparing 1000 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege…
Lifting the server siege… done.

Transactions: 1193412 hits
Availability: 100.00 %
Elapsed time: 599.82 secs
Data transferred: 3343.82 MB
Response time: 0.00 secs
Transaction rate: 1989.62 trans/sec
Throughput: 5.57 MB/sec
Concurrency: 5.58
Successful transactions: 1193412
Failed transactions: 0
Longest transaction: 0.54
Shortest transaction: 0.00

FILE: nphp1.log

Summary: This shows the real advantage of node in terms of concurrency. See here with increase in number of concurrent users how the concurrency level increased for Node(281.62) where as for PHP+Apache it is 5.58 still.

Conclusion: So I am convinced from the above test that Node is good at when high very high concurrency is demanded. Also saw in first part that the nonblocking IO gives Node an edge for event based application.

At the same time realized that until unless a real huge concurrency is required no need for Node. The cost at-least at this moment will be higher for the below reason

Getting Node experienced people or training your developer to Pro level is costlier
PHP+Apache stack will consume more swap memory (RAM) when concurrency is more, but Node will be expensive on Processor (CPU) when performing CPU intensive jobs. Scaling up a server is cheaper when only dealing with memory or RAM (obviously within thresold) but if we need processor upgrade (on physical servers) that will be real tough and expensive job.
If you are not owning dedicated server hosting Node on cloud is costlier than any other options

Someone in some forum wrote ” You no need to bother and think about the concurrency of Node until you are managing sites like Google,Facebook or Amazon.

So it is upto Webmasters , depending on their load and traffic and also budget what they want to use and implement.

GIT link for source codes and Database table

Complete discussion on Node JS forum during this whole test

*Please note:i used mysql_() functions for ease of writing instead of using pdo or mysqli_() functions.

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