Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
submicro.krishnabajpai.me
Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
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Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#2Hi HN,
I’m sharing a research-focused ultra-low-latency trading system I’ve been working on to explore how far software and systems-level optimizations can push decision latency on commodity hardware.
What this is
A research and learning framework, not a production or exchange-connected trading system
Designed to study nanosecond-scale decision pipelines, not profitability
Key technical points
~890ns end-to-end decision latency (packet → decision) in controlled benchmarks
Custom NIC driver work (kernel bypass / zero-copy paths)
Lock-free, cache-aligned data structures
CPU pinning, NUMA-aware memory layout, huge pages
Deterministic fast path with branch-minimized logic
Written with an emphasis on measurability and reproducibility
What it does not do
No live exchange connectivity
No order routing, risk checks, or compliance layers
Not intended for real trading or commercial use
Why open-source The goal is educational: to document and share systems optimization techniques (networking, memory, scheduling) that are usually discussed abstractly but rarely shown end-to-end in a small, inspectable codebase.
Hardware
Runs on standard x86 servers
Specialized NICs improve results but are not strictly required for experimentation
I’m posting this primarily for technical feedback and discussion:
Benchmarking methodology
Where latency numbers can be misleading
What optimizations matter vs. don’t at sub-microsecond scales
Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#3hey,
You said it is written in Rust partly but when I check languages section in the repo, I see none.
Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#4hey, You said it is written in Rust partly but when I check languages section in the repo, I see none.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, and my sincere apologies for the oversight. The Rust file was inadvertently missed in the previous commit.
I will update it promptly and ensure it is included correctly. Please give a star to repo, if you loved.
Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#5Those numbers seem to be TSC sampled in software from the moment it receives a full frame to the moment it starts sending a packet.
The traditional way to measure performance in HFT is hardware timestamps on the wire, start of frame in to start of frame out.
With those measurements the performance is probably closer to 2us, which is usually the realistic limit of a non-trivial software trading system.
Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#6hey, You said it is written in Rust partly but when I check languages section in the repo, I see none.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, and my sincere apologies for the oversight. The Rust file was inadvertently missed in the previous commit. I will update it promptly and ensure it is included correctly. Please give a star to repo, if you loved.
Forgive my ignorance but how can it be written in Rust and the not contain Rust due to "a rust file missing"
Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, and my sincere apologies for the oversight. The Rust file was inadvertently missed in the previous commit. I will update it promptly and ensure it is included correctly. Please give a star to repo, if you loved.
Forgive my ignorance but how can it be written in Rust and the not contain Rust due to "a rust file missing"
That’s a fair question — thanks for calling it out.
The Rust component is a small, standalone module (used for the latency-critical fast path) that was referenced in the write-up but was not included in the last public commit due to an oversight. Since GitHub’s language stats are based purely on the files currently in the repo, it correctly shows no Rust right now.
I’m updating the repository to include that Rust module so the implementation matches the description. Until then, the language breakdown you’re seeing is accurate for the current commit.
Appreciate the scrutiny — it helps keep things honest.
Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#8the number of emojis in readme is making me second-guess it
Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#9the number of emojis in readme is making me second-guess it
Fair point — agreed. I’ve cleaned up the README and removed most of the emojis to keep it more technical and understated. Thanks for the feedback.
Re: Ultra-Low-Latency Trading System
#10Hi HN, I’m sharing a research-focused ultra-low-latency trading system I’ve been working on to explore how far software and systems-level optimizations can push decision latency on commodity hardware. What this is A research and learning framework, not a production or exchange-connected trading system Designed to study nanosecond-scale decision pipelines, not profitability Key technical points ~890ns end-to-end decis…
> What it does not do
> No live exchange connectivity
> No order routing, risk checks, or compliance layers
> Not intended for real trading or commercial use
I think you need to frame the website better to position this project. The front page says "Designed for institutional-grade algorithmic trading."