Meteor Benchmarking

This is a simple benchmarking test comparing performance of Node.js and nginx.

Disclaimer These are some preliminary tests I have conducted on a weekend. I still have to prepare a more thorough test series that takes into account more real-world scenarios.

TL;DR

The test clearly shows that putting nginx in front of a Node.JS (or Meteor) application greatly increases response times for initial requests to the root path and static assets.

However, Node.JS performs much better for serving a single image than for serving the root path.

Naturally, having a multi-core system where nginx can take advantage of all cores will bring better results compared to Meteor which runs on a single core by default.

Scenario and setups

Two servers:

1. meteor
2. comet

Meteor runs Node.js, MongoDB, and nginx. Comet acts as a client. These tests have been conducted on a single core, single processor machine. Here are the results with 2 cores (all other specs remain).

Setup 1: Test Root for Node.JS

• Config file Node.JS

Deployment via mup, all requests go directly to Meteor at http://meteor:3000

Setup 2: Test Root for Nginx as proxy

• Config file Node.JS
• Config file Nginx

Use the configuration for nginx as a proxy. Nginx forwards all requests to the upstream Node.JS server at Port 3000.

Setup 3: Test Root for Nginx as proxy + serving static files

• Config file Node.JS
• Config file Nginx

Similar to setup 2 - proxy all requests to / to Port 3000 (Node.JS), but all requests for CSS, JS, and images are served by Nginx directly.

Setup 4: Request an image from Node.JS

• Config file Node.JS

Similar to the tests before, only this time ab requests an image (100k jpg file). Served from Node.js.

Setup 5: Request an image from Nginx as Node.JS proxy

• Config file Node.JS
• Config file Nginx

Serving the image from Nginx, with a configuration to pass requests to Node.JS.

Setup 6: Request an image from Nginx serving static

• Config file Node.JS
• Config file Nginx

Added static files as locations to Nginx config, serving from Nginx rather than Node.JS.

Results

How to read the graphs

Testing Root

Requesting the root path using Apache Bench (ab) with

ab -n100000 -c100 -g plotdata.tsv http://meteor/

Result	Node.JS	Nginx (just proxy)	Nginx (serving static assets)
Requests	100000	100000	100000
Time taken (s)	299.050	106.313	108.380
Requests per second	334.39	940.62	922.68
Time per request (ms) (mean, across all concurrent requests)	2.991	1.063	1.084
Transfer rate (Kbytes/sec)	269.41	806.51	791.12

Node.JS

Apache Bench Results | Raw Timeseries Data

Nginx as proxy

Apache Bench Results | Raw Timeseries Data

Nginx serving static assets

Apache Bench Results | Raw Timeseries Data

Testing an image

Requesting an image (100018 bytes) with

ab -n100000 -c100 -g plotdata.tsv http://meteor/image.jpg

Result	Node.JS	Nginx (just proxy)	Nginx (serving static assets)
Requests	100000	100000	100000
Time taken (s)	144.642	150.812	61.633
Requests per second	691.36	663.08	1622.52
Time per request (ms) (mean, across all concurrent requests)	1.446	1.508	0.616
Transfer rate (Kbytes/sec)	67719.94	64968.57	159044.71

Node.JS

Nginx as proxy

Apache Bench Results | Raw Timeseries Data

Nginx serving static assets

Apache Bench Results | Raw Timeseries Data

Combined results

Result	1a) Node.js (/)	2a) Node.js (image.jpg)	1b) Nginx (/, proxy)	2b) Nginx (image.jpg, proxy)	3a) Nginx (/, optimized)	3b) Nginx (image.jpg, optimized)
Time for test	299	145	106	151	108	62
Reqs/s	334	691	940	663	923	1623
Time per req (ms)	2.991	1.446	1.063	1.508	1.084	0.616
Conn times min (ms)	33	110	21	3	22	7
Conn times mean (ms)	299	145	106	151	108	62
Conn times max (ms)	490	294	260	473	163	1055

Percentage of reqs served in certain time

Result	1a) Node.js (/)	2a) Node.js (image.jpg)	1b) Nginx (/, proxy)	2b) Nginx (image.jpg, proxy)	3a) Nginx (/, optimized)	3b) Nginx (image.jpg, optimized)
50%	331	139	105	149	107	60
66%	346	151	110	167	111	63
75%	357	154	112	181	114	66
80%	364	156	113	191	116	67
90%	397	164	118	223	122	73
95%	420	175	124	255	127	80
98%	447	194	131	293	132	90
99%	459	206	134	315	135	98
100%	490	294	260	473	163	1055

Specs

Both machines are equally equipped:

• Same underlying host
• KVM machines with
• 2 GB RAM
• 1 Proc with 1 Core (virtual)
• Intel E1000 NIC (virtual)

Misc

Plotting of the graphs was done using Gnuplot with inspiration from Brad Landers. Use the gnuplot script like this:

$ gnuplot gnuPlotScript