Benchmark Overview

The light-4j framework is one of the fastest microservices/API frameworks on the market, with a concentrated effort to achieve this result. There are a lot of frameworks, languages to build microservices but the most popular ones are Java, Go and Nodejs.

Nodejs used to be faster than Java EE platforms, but it has many issues in the enterprise world.

Go has potential but is still not mature in enterprise applications. We are starting with Java because it is highly optimized and there are so many existing investments in most organizations.

In Java, the most popular framework is Spring Boot. Many users want to compare light-4j with Spring Boot. We just started a new project, light-spring-boot, to allow Spring Boot applications to leverage the light-4j middleware handlers to address cross-cutting concerns with better performance.

We have tested most microservices frameworks. Here are the benchmarks along with source code.

We have also submitted test cases to TechEmpower for the third-party test from round 14 (Please note that light-4j was called light-java in this report) and the latest preview with some optimizations.

All the implementations for TechEmpower are following the RESTful style although a lot of middleware handlers are removed. The source code can be used as an example on how to implement high-performance microservices.

  • Microservices framework benchmarks tested most popular microservices frameworks.
  • Third-party [Techempower Benchmarks][] tested more HTTP frameworks with contributions open source community.
  • Leverage Light-4j middleware for Spring Boot App with light-spring-boot for better performance.
  • Light-proxy sidecar for CCC benchmarks with wrk for maximum throughput with both Light-4j and Spring Boot backends.

Spring Boot

Recently, one of the big customers asked if we can integrate light-4j middleware handlers to address cross-cutting concerns to Spring Boot applications. They want to leverage the light-4j middleware handlers as they are faster, smaller and easier to customize. Most importantly, these handlers work with Light infrastructure to form an ecosystem to support microservices architecture. In this way, they can migrate their thousands of Spring Boot applications to Light without changing the existing controllers and business logic. Read More »

Nodejs Pitfalls

When talking about microservices, a lot of Nodejs developers will say that Node is a better platform than Java and other languages to build microservices. The arguments are: Nodejs is faster than Java at runtime. Nodejs development is more productive than Java. These claims have already been proven to be false as I’ve been working on both platforms in the banking industry for the last couple of years. I have been building REST API frameworks on both Java and Nodejs and the following are my observations on Nodejs in enterprise computing. Read More »