ExpressJS vs. Actix-Web: performance and running cost comparison

Post by Dowwie » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #31

throwaway894345 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m skeptical of this finding out at least it’s generalizability. I know (and like) Rust a fair bit better than JS, but I would be surprised if I could build a nontrivial web app in Rust faster than Node. And that’s without using TypeScript. YMMV, but I’d be curious to hear from others with experience with both languages.

I've used Rust for two years and still regularly get stumped. Recently, I wanted to maintain a map of routes to futures so that multiple in-flight requests could await the same future while it fetches from disk. The Javascript version took about one minute. Using Rust doesn't give you free performance wins, especially not when working with async code where lifetimes actually get hard. Any time you're carrying around…

Post by kaoD » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #41

hombre_fatal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Rust for two years and still regularly get stumped. Recently, I wanted to maintain a map of routes to futures so that multiple in-flight requests could await the same future while it fetches from disk. The Javascript version took about one minute. Using Rust doesn't give you free performance wins, especially not when working with async code where lifetimes actually get hard. Any time you're carrying around…

My first attempts with anything in Rust are also challenging. Second attempts, though, are straightforward as long as I have an example to work from and haven't forgotten about it. It would take me a lot longer to build your router example in Node than it did you because I haven't worked with Node but once I know how, maybe it would take me a minute, too. What did you finally come up with for your router impl in Rust…

Post by The_rationalist » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

nwsm wrote: post #30

No one has ever been deciding between express and actix-web

Post by The_rationalist » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #5

rgbrenner wrote: post #2

I understand that using Actix really highlights the speed advantage of Rust... but I think it's irresponsible to encourage rewrites in Rust using a framework that's dead because the developer decided to quit instead of fix security issues[0]. The last thing we need is a bunch of new Rust devs rewriting their perfectly fine Node code using an insecure framework. Rust is really fast, especially compared to Node. This i…

It's the only web framework in Rust that has thus far reached maintenance mode because it became feature complete, was heavily vetted by many teams, and is architecturally mature. It's not just really fast but has all of the bells and whistles. Further, people are actively contributing to the project. Replacing remaining sound yet unsafe blocks with fully safe rust, without taxing performance, is the remaining, ongoi…

Post by dunnock » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #20

jasondclinton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only think of ecosystem size and language familiarity. Authors addressed development speed and found that Rust's static typing and compiler checks reduced development time vs JS. What other reasons did you have in mind?

Development speed is one. If the author were more familiar with JavaScript (e.g. knowing what const does) it might have gone faster. Using TypeScript should erase the development time delta due to static types. If you're creating a frontend web app to go along with it there are others, such as reduced context–switching and using fewer tools. Frankly, a sample size of one is incredibly weak evidence that it's faster t…