pythonMicroframeworks

comparison of (memory & speed of)

bottle
cherrypy
Flask
tornado
web.py

Each can be started standalone (see test_frameworkname.py), and serves a "Hello World!" to the browser.

Quickstart

Get my (comparison & 5 servers) sourcecode:

git clone https://github.com/drandreaskrueger/pythonMicroframeworks.git
cd pythonMicroframeworks

Dependencies - Prepare machine with tools and python 2.7 pip; and upgrade pip, and install all frameworks:

apt-get update && apt-get install -y git nano sudo python-pip build-essential python-dev
virtualenv env; source env/bin/activate; python --version  # Python 2.7.16 - see issue 1
pip install -U pip && pip install bottle cherrypy Flask tornado web.py psutil requests

Tested on my machine in 2020 on Debian 10 Buster. And 2016 in the cloud, on Debian 8 Digitalocean VPS - bookmark my superb manual how to initialize & install django there. These are the library versions used in 2020:

pip freeze | grep "bottle\|CherryPy\|Flask\|tornado\|web.py"
# bottle==0.12.18, CherryPy==17.4.2, Flask==1.1.2, tornado==5.1.1, web.py==0.51

Start comparison with

python compare.py

Commandline arguments

If -for hammering- you want more repetitions (per framework) and different timeout (in seconds):

python compare.py 2000
python compare.py 2000 0.5

Results

Put

results_windows.txt
results_linux.txt
results_linux_2020.txt with newer versions of everything

besides each other in two windows, for now. (ToDo: Everything into one table.)

Strange

Memory measurement via psutil:

There is a big discrepancy between rss, and vms on Linux and Windows.
To me it looks as if Linux.rss ~= Windows.vms. Strange - but the numbers are too close to not notice that.
See psutil tool. Hopefully, psutil 4.0.0 will be more useful. My 3.3.0 does not have memory_full_info() yet.

Main findings

Most of my measurements show more memory usage than this 2011 examination - but those were older versions.
web.py is slower, especially on Windows, hammering takes ~60% longer as for any of the others.
web.py is the first to timeout on Windows.
tornado is the first to timeout on Linux.
After hammering (2000 requests per framework), the memory usage is higher.
- for bottle, the effect is < 1%. Bottle seems to have the best memory management.
- all the other frameworks need considerably more memory after having served 2000 url requests.
- the effect is stronger on Windows for most of them.
- for tornado the effect is stronger on Linux - it needs 23% more memory after 2000 url requests.
Some of the frameworks are probably really powerful, but also more difficult to understand. And ...

... before my final verdict, I guess I need to sleep. This was ~9 hours of straight coding. After a full working day. :-)

Punchcard

Using my cool new tool, this is a very inaccurate work time estimation:

errors = False, accesstimes = True, granularity = 20, fillsize = 60, ignore = True, omit = False
C:\...\github-drandreaskrueger-pythonMicroframeworks
Found 612 times, of which 335 are unique,
between 2016-03-04 22:21:55,
    and 2016-03-05 15:07:00.

Each 'x' represents a 20 minute block:
2016-03-04|-------------------------------------------------------------------x  xx|
2016-03-05|xxxxx xxxxx   x  xxx xxx  x               xxxx--------------------------|
With 20-minute blocks, the number of hours is approx 8.3

Filling up blocks of size 3, i.e. pauses of approx 60 minutes.

Each 'x' represents a 20 minute block:
2016-03-04|-------------------------------------------------------------------xxxxx|
2016-03-05|xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx               xxxx--------------------------|
With 20-minute blocks, the number of hours is approx 12.0

In this case it works out pretty accurate, it was one long work flow until I collapsed into bed, and slept 4 hours.

You

Suggestion: Migrate all this from Python 2.7.16 to Python 3.x = Solve issue 1. Thanks.

Please help, fork it, improve it, pull request. It was a one-night-hack. Not everything is super-elegant yet. But it works. You can actually include your favorite webframework now, easily.

Please retweet, thx.

Donationware

Very important - If you like this, show it: [BTC] 14EyWS5z8Y5kgwq52D3qeZVor1rUsdNYJy. Thanks, much appreciated.
No Coinbase account yet? Then use my referral, to give me and you 10$ bonus. Oh yes, you can also hire me, part time.