node.js performance with zeromq vs. Python vs. Java

I’ve written a simple echo request/reply test for zeromq using node.js, Python, and Java. The code runs a loop of 100K requests. The platform is a 5yo MacBook Pro with 2 cores and 3G of RAM running Snow Leopard.

node.js is consistently an order of magnitude slower than the other two platforms.

Java:
real 0m18.823s
user 0m2.735s
sys 0m6.042s

Python:
real 0m18.600s
user 0m2.656s
sys 0m5.857s

node.js:
real 3m19.034s
user 2m43.460s
sys 0m24.668s

Interestingly, with Python and Java the client and server processes both use about half of a CPU. The client for node.js uses just about a full CPU and the server uses about 30% of a CPU. The client process also has an enormous number of page faults leading me to believe this is a memory issue. Also, at 10K requests node is only 3 times slower; it definitely slows down more the longer it runs.

Here’s the client code (note that the process.exit() line doesn’t work, either, which is why I included an internal timer in addition to using the time command):

var zeromq = require("zeromq");

var counter = 0;
var startTime = new Date();

var maxnum = 10000;

var socket = zeromq.createSocket('req');

socket.connect("tcp://127.0.0.1:5502");
console.log("Connected to port 5502.");

function moo()
{
    process.nextTick(function(){
        socket.send('Hello');
        if (counter < maxnum)
        {
            moo();
        }
    });
}

moo();

socket.on('message',
          function(data)
          {
              if (counter % 1000 == 0)
              {
                  console.log(data.toString('utf8'), counter);
              }

              if (counter >= maxnum)
              {
                  var endTime = new Date();
                  console.log("Time: ", startTime, endTime);
                  console.log("ms  : ", endTime - startTime);
                  process.exit(0);
              }

              //console.log("Received: " + data);
              counter += 1;

          }
);

socket.on('error', function(error) {
  console.log("Error: "+error);
});

Server code:

var zeromq = require("zeromq");

var socket = zeromq.createSocket('rep');

socket.bind("tcp://127.0.0.1:5502",
            function(err)
            {
                if (err) throw err;
                console.log("Bound to port 5502.");

                socket.on('message', function(envelope, blank, data)
                          {
                              socket.send(envelope.toString('utf8') + " Blancmange!");
                          });

                socket.on('error', function(err) {
                    console.log("Error: "+err);
                });
            }
);

For comparison, the Python client and server code:

import zmq

context = zmq.Context()
socket = context.socket(zmq.REQ)
socket.connect("tcp://127.0.0.1:5502")

for counter in range(0, 100001):
    socket.send("Hello")
    message = socket.recv()

    if counter % 1000 == 0:
        print message, counter



import zmq

context = zmq.Context()
socket = context.socket(zmq.REP)

socket.bind("tcp://127.0.0.1:5502")
print "Bound to port 5502."

while True:
    message = socket.recv()
    socket.send(message + " Blancmange!")

And the Java client and server code:

package com.moo.test;

import org.zeromq.ZMQ;
import org.zeromq.ZMQ.Context;
import org.zeromq.ZMQ.Socket;

public class TestClient
{
    public static void main (String[] args)
    {
        Context context = ZMQ.context(1);

        Socket requester = context.socket(ZMQ.REQ);
        requester.connect("tcp://127.0.0.1:5502");

        System.out.println("Connected to port 5502.");

        for (int counter = 0; counter < 100001; counter++)
        {
            if (!requester.send("Hello".getBytes(), 0))
            {
                throw new RuntimeException("Error on send.");
            }

            byte[] reply = requester.recv(0);
            if (reply == null)
            {
                throw new RuntimeException("Error on receive.");
            }

            if (counter % 1000 == 0)
            {
                String replyValue = new String(reply);
                System.out.println((new String(reply)) + " " + counter);
            }
        }

        requester.close();
        context.term();
    }
}

package com.moo.test;

import org.zeromq.ZMQ;
import org.zeromq.ZMQ.Context;
import org.zeromq.ZMQ.Socket;

public class TestServer
{
    public static void main (String[] args) {
        Context context = ZMQ.context(1);

        Socket socket  = context.socket(ZMQ.REP);
        socket.bind("tcp://127.0.0.1:5502");

        System.out.println("Bound to port 5502.");

        while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted())
        {
            byte[] request = socket.recv(0);
            if (request == null)
            {
                throw new RuntimeException("Error on receive.");
            }

            if (!socket.send(" Blancmange!".getBytes(), 0))
            {
                throw new RuntimeException("Error on send.");
            }
        }

        socket.close();
        context.term();
    }
}

I would like to like node, but with the vast difference in code size, simplicity, and performance, I’d have a hard time convincing myself at this point.

So, has anyone seen behavior like this before, or did I do something asinine in the code?