The size of the binary that was created with GraalVM native-image can be reduced even further by using UPX. Compression with UPX has a significant impact on the file size but also incurs a penalty with regards to startup performance and memory consumption. In my test setup, the executable that was compressed with option --best was 48 MB smaller than the original file. However, compared to its uncompressed counterpart the startup time of the compressed executable was approximately 300 milliseconds slower. Please see the following sections for more detailed test results.
I used the uncompressed binary from release v0.3.1 and compressed it with all available UPX compression options:
| Binary | Size [byte] |
|---|---|
| v0.3.1-no-upx | 67.712.920 |
| v0.3.1-upx-1 | 26.456.312 |
| v0.3.1-upx-2 | 25.614.824 |
| v0.3.1-upx-3 | 25.240.056 |
| v0.3.1-upx-4 | 23.903.052 |
| v0.3.1-upx-5 | 22.732.760 |
| v0.3.1-upx-6 | 22.413.428 |
| v0.3.1-upx-7 | 21.868.336 |
| v0.3.1-upx-8 | 21.603.612 |
| v0.3.1-upx-9 | 21.335.948 |
| v0.3.1-upx-best | 18.757.440 |
| v0.3.1-upx-brute | 13.582.308 |
| v0.3.1-upx-ultra-brute | 13.540.112 |
In my test setup, the memory consumption of compressed executables was approximately 70 MB higher because the binary needs to be decompressed on the fly before it is executed. All test results were acquired via this script.
| Binary | Memory [bytes] |
|---|---|
| v0.3.1-no-upx | 66.242.560 |
| v0.3.1-upx-1 | 140.781.568 |
| v0.3.1-upx-2 | 140.781.568 |
| v0.3.1-upx-3 | 140.797.952 |
| v0.3.1-upx-4 | 140.773.376 |
| v0.3.1-upx-5 | 140.797.952 |
| v0.3.1-upx-6 | 140.773.376 |
| v0.3.1-upx-7 | 140.781.568 |
| v0.3.1-upx-8 | 140.789.760 |
| v0.3.1-upx-9 | 140.781.568 |
| v0.3.1-upx-best | 140.756.992 |
| v0.3.1-upx-brute | 140.806.144 |
| v0.3.1-upx-ultra-brute | 141.182.976 |
I used hyperfine in conjunction with a shell script to measure the time to the first response of the server executable. The tests were run on a fairly outdated Lenovo X220 laptop (Intel Core i7-2640M, 16 GB RAM). This is the hyperfine command line that measured the results further down below:
hyperfine -r 50 -L compression no-upx,upx-best,upx-9,upx-8,upx-7,upx-6,upx-5,upx-4,upx-3,upx-2,upx-1,upx-brute,upx-ultra-brute './time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-{compression} -c "curl localhost:8080/hello"'
| Command | Mean [ms] | Min [ms] | Max [ms] | Relative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-no-upx -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
41.5 ± 10.7 | 22.8 | 63.6 | 1.00 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-1 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
375.9 ± 22.4 | 328.3 | 422.7 | 9.05 ± 2.38 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-2 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
372.4 ± 23.9 | 334.3 | 449.8 | 8.96 ± 2.37 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-3 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
367.8 ± 17.2 | 329.1 | 405.1 | 8.85 ± 2.31 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-4 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
355.9 ± 18.5 | 320.9 | 400.1 | 8.57 ± 2.24 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-5 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
336.3 ± 19.7 | 299.7 | 375.9 | 8.10 ± 2.13 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-6 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
336.0 ± 19.8 | 295.4 | 368.1 | 8.09 ± 2.13 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-7 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
326.3 ± 19.9 | 284.8 | 360.6 | 7.86 ± 2.07 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-8 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
316.5 ± 22.0 | 283.2 | 368.3 | 7.62 ± 2.02 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-9 -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
315.2 ± 19.6 | 273.5 | 358.3 | 7.59 ± 2.00 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-best -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
330.7 ± 19.7 | 285.4 | 375.8 | 7.96 ± 2.10 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-brute -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
1144.4 ± 26.3 | 1098.4 | 1236.2 | 27.55 ± 7.09 |
./time-to-first-response.sh -s v0.3.1-upx-ultra-brute -c "curl localhost:8080/hello" |
1198.6 ± 22.4 | 1155.3 | 1246.2 | 28.85 ± 7.42 |