Node 16 VS Node 22 Performance Question

[759325100]

Discussed in https://github.com/orgs/nodejs/discussions/56956

^{Originally posted by 759325100 February 8, 2025}
I want to upgrade my project from Node v16.19.1 to Node 22.13.1, before upgrading I did a benchmark to measure performance changes after the upgrade (http server)

But I got a bad result. The performance of Node V22 has a significant decline compared to Node V16 (specifically referring to http scenarios)

Below is the environment and results of my test. I hope you can get your answers. Thank you.

Docker run node v22.13.1 alpine(3.20) on Ubuntu 16.04.7 LTS(8cpu 16G)
Docker run node v16.19.1 alpine(3.12) on Ubuntu 16.04.7 LTS(8cpu 16G)

Docker run script (The contents in the docker image are basically the same)

docker run --name=node-v22 --rm -it -p 30255:3000 dockerhub.xx/node:22.13.1 /bin/ash
docker run --name=node-v16 --rm -it -p 30256:3000 dockerhub.xx/node:16.19.1 /bin/ash

create app.js content

const http = require('http');

// create HTTP server
const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  // set response header
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });

  // send "Hello World" to client
  res.end('Hello World');
});

// listen 3000 port
server.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server running at http://localhost:3000/');
});

run

node app.js

Throughput testing using abtest.

# n = 1000 or 2000
ab -n 100000 -c n http://localhost:30256/

# n = 1000 or 2000
ab -n 100000 -c n http://localhost:30255/

Test Result

Node V16 2000 concurrent

Server Software:
Server Hostname:        localhost
Server Port:            30256

Document Path:          /
Document Length:        11 bytes

Concurrency Level:      2000
Time taken for tests:   26.451 seconds
Complete requests:      100000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      11200000 bytes
HTML transferred:       1100000 bytes
Requests per second:    3780.59 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       529.018 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       0.265 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          413.50 [Kbytes/sec] received

Node V22 2000 concurrent

Server Software:
Server Hostname:        localhost
Server Port:            30255

Document Path:          /
Document Length:        11 bytes

Concurrency Level:      2000
Time taken for tests:   51.655 seconds
Complete requests:      100000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      11200000 bytes
HTML transferred:       1100000 bytes
Requests per second:    1935.93 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       1033.096 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       0.517 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          211.74 [Kbytes/sec] received

I've tested it many times and the results are basically the same.

Can anyone tell me the reason or a more standard test method

Thank for everyone

[759325100]

Using abtest 1000 concurrent results

Node V16

Server Software:
Server Hostname:       localhost
Server Port:            30256

Document Path:          /
Document Length:        11 bytes

Concurrency Level:      1000
Time taken for tests:   23.729 seconds
Complete requests:      100000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      11200000 bytes
HTML transferred:       1100000 bytes
Requests per second:    4214.23 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       237.291 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       0.237 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          460.93 [Kbytes/sec] received

Node V22

Server Software:
Server Hostname:        localhost
Server Port:            30255

Document Path:          /
Document Length:        11 bytes

Concurrency Level:      1000
Time taken for tests:   32.905 seconds
Complete requests:      100000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      11200000 bytes
HTML transferred:       1100000 bytes
Requests per second:    3039.03 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       329.052 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       0.329 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          332.39 [Kbytes/sec] received

From the perspective of resource consumption, the Node V22 memory usage is smaller, but the CPU has reached a peak of 100% during the test.

[759325100]

Through further testing, I found that the performance decline was in the V20 version.
I built the image of V18 and V20 again to define which version of the performance drop was first seen, and eventually I found that V18's performance was comparable to V16, or even improved. However, when testing the V20 version, the performance showed a significant decline. Compared with V22 and V16, V20 is even worse.

[759325100]

Can someone give me some help to answer the specific reasons for this performance degradation.

[PandaWorker]

I think we need to make a cpu profile of both versions and see where the bottleneck appeared. Will you make a cpu profile?

[759325100]

@PandaWorker
I'm not sure if the files I provide match your expectations, I'll describe my steps clearly below.

Test script js

const http = require('http');

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
  res.end('Hello World');
});

server.listen(3000, '0.0.0.0', () => {
  console.log('Server running at http://localhost:3000/');
});

Test 1
in node v22.13.1 docker container
run script

NODE_ENV=production node --prof app.js

console output

Server running at http://localhost:3000/

performance testing using the ab tool

ab ab -n 80000 -c 1000 http://xxxxx:port/

ab result

Server Software:
Server Hostname:        localhost
Server Port:            30255

Document Path:          /
Document Length:        11 bytes

Concurrency Level:      1000
Time taken for tests:   29.087 seconds
Complete requests:      80000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      8960000 bytes
HTML transferred:       880000 bytes
Requests per second:    2750.41 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       363.582 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       0.364 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          300.83 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0   90 736.5      0   15041
Processing:    12  118 1265.8     30   26192
Waiting:        4  118 1265.8     29   26192
Total:         21  208 1597.9     30   29053

isolate-file
isolate-0x7f8198c0a000-240-v8-node-v22.log
node --prof-process file
node_v22_isolate_process.txt

Test 2
in node v18.20.6 docker container

...(Omit the steps)

ab result

Server Software:
Server Hostname:        localhost
Server Port:            30257

Document Path:          /
Document Length:        11 bytes

Concurrency Level:      1000
Time taken for tests:   18.169 seconds
Complete requests:      80000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      8960000 bytes
HTML transferred:       880000 bytes
Requests per second:    4403.17 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       227.109 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       0.227 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          481.60 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        0  169 907.3      0   15026
Processing:    18   47  32.6     42     838
Waiting:        8   35  32.5     30     822
Total:         21  216 914.0     45   15494

isolate-file
isolate-0x7fc5e98a1080-50-v8.log

node --prof-process file
node_v18_isolate_process.txt

If the above information does not meet your requirements. Please provide me with standardized implementation steps. Thank you very much for your help.

comments:
The above node v18 and node v22 are both based on alpine 3.20. And the operating environment is completely consistent.

Q: Why use node v20 for testing?
A: Because my ultimate goal is to upgrade node v16 to node v22.

[759325100]

@PandaWorker

You can quickly reproduce the above results by following the steps below(In just a few minutes)

on linux server execute commands

steps

docker run --name=node-v22 --rm -it -p 30255:3000 node:22.13.1-alpine3.20 /bin/ash
cd /usr/local/ && mkdir app && cd app
vi app.js # input http server code and save file

code

const http = require('http');

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
  res.end('Hello World');
});

server.listen(3000, '0.0.0.0', () => {
  console.log('Server running at http://localhost:3000/');
});

node app.js

console output

Server running at http://localhost:3000/

Using abtest on another linux server

ab -n 100000 -c 1000 http://10.0.5.188:30255/

Record the test results, then just replace the docker image with node:18.20.6-alpine3.20 and then do it once.

Comparison of the test results of two abtests.

I believe you will get the same results as me.