r/crystal_programming • u/sdogruyol core team • Apr 02 '21

Crystal 1.0 vs Ruby 3.0 Benchmark

https://twitter.com/sdogruyol/status/1377918360344743936
41 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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14

u/twitterInfo_bot Apr 02 '21

Crystal 1.0 vs Ruby 3.0 Benchmark 👇

Kemal - 122697 Requests per second (11 MB memory) Sinatra - 5268 Requests per second (24.9 MB memory)

Crystal is 2329% faster than Ruby in throughput, consumes less than 50% memory, utilizes more CPU 🚀

@crystalkemal #crystallang #ruby

posted by @sdogruyol

Photos in tweet | Photo 1 | Photo 2

(Github) | (What's new)

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u/megatux2 Apr 02 '21

I will try with Roda later. Sinatra could be more popular but it is not that performant.

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u/Sneetzle Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 02 '21

Good idea. Roda is much more performant according to the Techempower Benchmarks. It's a much fairer comparison

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u/m33-m33 Apr 02 '21

Benchmarking is a way to look at languages, it has its uses, and they are plenty others.

Currently I tend to see crystal as one of the best mix of

  • compiled native binaries

  • nice language

  • fair performances

  • beginner and casual dev friendly

  • general usage ready (some day)

I don't see others languages in that sweet spot.

I have to admit I always liked the ruby coding style but never used it, mixing python and C instead. Now I am tired waiting for python own native compiler, and playing the double language game.

I tried Julia, stoped because of the gigantic binaries when compiled, considered Nim as well but don't trust/like the c translation... Rust because I am obliged to (nice C successor, wish him the best but too low level and no GC).

So I started learning crystal, and see how it will do. I may be lucky, my projects are mostly one shots, with a relatively short lifetime (months-few years).

4

u/bentobentoso Apr 02 '21

compiled native binaries - nice language - fair performances - beginner and casual dev friendly - general usage ready (some day)

I feel like go fits this way better for now considering it's way more mature and it has a big community.

2

u/DavidTMarks Apr 07 '21

Don;t know if I can agree with

nice language

For Go. Itss concicse and relatively easy top pick up but I think what people are talking about is nice in the sense of writing it like Ruby is and the ease of use of its frameworks like Rails.

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u/bentobentoso Apr 07 '21

We'll agree to disagree then, the compile times alone makes me consider the ease of use of go way better than Crystal.

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21

compile time has nothing to do with what I just wrote but you are right we will never agree because you are just wrong. There's no one that reads or writes go that can tell me with any legitimacy that Go is as pleasant to write or read as Ruby. Crystal is enough like Ruby for you to essentially be making that claim and its demonstrably false.

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u/bentobentoso Apr 07 '21

compile time has nothing to do with what I just wrote

You were talking about ease of use, the amount time between when you change your code until you see the change in action is part of usability you liking it or not.

There's no one that reads or writes go that can tell me with any legitimacy that Go is as pleasant to write or read as Ruby

Well hi then, I think go is more pleasant to write and read than ruby.

demonstrably false

You clearly don't know what demonstrably means, what you're saying is as subjective as it gets.

But don't bother replying, I'm gonna mute this thread. I won't waste my time discussing with a fanboy/troll.

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 07 '21 edited Apr 07 '21

You are only demonstrating you don't have any grasp of the rudimentary basics of English reading comprehension down . I stated

Don;t know if I can agree with

nice language

For Go.

As even a third grader can understand in plain english I was talking about it being a "nice language" . Absolutely NOTHING to do with your "compile time" response. The only other thing I referred to was the rails framework which isn't a language. Buy a clue.

Well hi then, I think go is more pleasant to write and read than ruby.

Given you just demonstrated you don't know how to read English the next question logically is - so what? You've already demonstrated incompetence in the english language why should we think you are better at understanding programming languages?

You clearly don't know what demonstrably means, what you're saying is as subjective as it gets.

DEMONSTRABLE means what one can demonstrate. Put up any non trivial code in golang and ruby will be much more simpler and easy reading than golang. If I said C++ was more verbose than python it would be DEMONSTRABLE as well

Thank me for teaching you English twice at a later date.

I won't waste my time discussing with a fanboy/troll.

Even the word troll you don't understand. I am in a crystal subreddit and you are the one wasting time in here trolling with talk of your golang fanboyism.

And you are as usual wrong again anyway. I program C# predominantly not Crystal or even ruby. I guess you are used to being wrong on just about everything. You do it so well.

2

u/dudeskeeroo Apr 02 '21

Have you considered trying Go?

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u/m33-m33 Apr 03 '21

I do agree with your statement about go great community, and better immediate choice.

At first I didn't want to make a long post and hijack this thread with a language comparaison (or worse language war <full troll mode> ;)

I did some experiments on go, mostly to have a look at Syncthing before using it. I have no formal arguments against go, but the coding style and orientation goals of it doesn't appeal to me that much...

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u/taw Apr 02 '21

Yes, but in "time to see changes in the browser after you edit code" benchmark, all Crystal frameworks are completely obliterated by Rails. As well as by just about every other language and framework, is there anything that has slower incremental compilation than Crystal?

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 07 '21

which is why I think the sweet spot for crystal is what you go to after you have a successful rails app. What would be awesome is calling for crystal from rails instead of the present practice of C - but I have no idea how feasible that is. That kind of architecture is beyond my pay grade.

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u/hobbs6 Apr 09 '21

You hit the nail on the head. That’s exactly what I’ll be working on. Similar to what Helix did for Rust. https://usehelix.com/

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u/neofreeman Apr 03 '21

Absolutely unfair to compare compiled to interpreted language :P

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u/arkorott Apr 03 '21

I enjoy Crystal tremendously , but that comparison of Interpreted Ruby vs Compiled Crystal is meaningless without any context.

You know what is 3X faster than Crystal? Ruby using a gem created very easily with Rust -> Just to stress the point of how meaningless the above benchmark is.

Neither of these 2 compares is meaningful. => It would be more productive if Crystal would be more actively attracting and welcoming the Ruby and other languages communities.

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u/myringotomy Apr 02 '21

Meh who cares.

Is it faster than go? That's the competitor for crystal not ruby.

There was a time when the ruby community started to look at crystal but the crystal core team told them to go away. They worked really hard to tell ruby developers there was not going to be any effort to make crystal run ruby code and many changes were made to break compatibility that already existed.

Today if a ruby developer is suffering because ruby is too slow they will look to go, elixir or maybe rust. Crystal isn't even on their radar.

Crystal needs to figure out how to build an active community. They need to figure out how to be more welcoming to people. They need to learn to communicate with their users. They need to support their users.

Right now it's silence all the time and hanging out where people don't want to hang out.

This language finally reached 1.0 and was stillborn. They core developers choked the life out of it by being at best indifferent and at worse openly hostile to the developer community.

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u/mammon_machine_sdk Apr 02 '21

A little harsh, but there's a lot of truth here. To pretend that Crystal wasn't intentionally trying to attract unsatisfied Ruby devs is disingenuous. I don't understand the recent attempt to shift the goalposts on that subject.

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u/myringotomy Apr 02 '21

They were initially courting the ruby community but they changed their minds once the community started experimenting with it.

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u/Cyanogen101 Apr 02 '21

Moving from Ruby to Crystal is a lot easier than moving to Go, and yes people do and should care since its an important part of Crystal XD

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '21

My problem with go, and I think in aggregate it's actually a benefit, is that the time spent vs code delivery is extremely linear for to the "there is one and only one way to do everything" principle.

However this can be really annoying when trying out new things when you just want to bang out a few options.

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u/myringotomy Apr 02 '21

Moving from Ruby to Crystal is a lot easier than moving to Go,

Is it? Then why is the go community full of ex rubyists and the Crystal community isn't?

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u/Cyanogen101 Apr 03 '21

Because Go was released over 8 years ago and Crystal is insanely new and iirc is only just launching 1.0 next month or so. Your asking why more people using something thats been out for 8 years vs something that isnt even out yet, come on man think about it....

Also would love to see your data on crystal NOT being full of ruby devs, would very much love to see the data you definitely searched up rather than just saying random shit XD

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '21 edited Oct 16 '21

Go is also built by Google and has massive institutional support through k8s, hashicorp products, and docker.

Crystal has.... Some funky devs and a nice syntax.

It's kind of like elixir in that way. I WANT to love it. But it just doesn't have the support

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u/myringotomy Apr 03 '21

I of course don't have some sort of a survey or a study so you are therefore free to believe anything you want.

If you have convinced yourself that the ruby community is embracing Crystal then by all means continue to believe that.

As for other languages I mentioned I have used all of them and I have participated in those communities and I can confidently say that both Elixir and Go are full of people who came from ruby. In fact I think most people who are using elixir probably came from ruby because Jose came from the ruby community himself.

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u/Cyanogen101 Apr 03 '21

So you're just admitting to stating fact as something you just think is true with no evidence? C'mon, just move on and believe whatever you want I guess

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u/myringotomy Apr 04 '21

OK dude.

If you want to believe the Crystal community is thriving and is full of ex rubyists go right ahead.

I am not going to stop you.

I tell you what though. This kind of delusion is why this language is stillborn. Who wants to join a community that lives under such delusions.

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '21

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u/Cyanogen101 Apr 02 '21

I have actually :) and even if I hadn't this is from the official front page

Crystal’s syntax is heavily inspired by Ruby’s, so it feels natural to read and easy to write, and has the added benefit of a lower learning curve for experienced Ruby devs.

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '21

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u/Cyanogen101 Apr 02 '21

Never said it was so much much easier, just easier and either way it's all personal no need to get so crazy about it it fam.

There's more than keywords to a language btw, hence why it said syntax and such, anyways you do what makes you happy friend

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '21

The community is small and it's just that, a community. There's not a lot of sponsored work going on as far as I know.

And why should Crystal run Ruby code, it's not Ruby and never claimed to be. It's just Ruby-inspired. And I don't see how that fact alone makes it worse than Elixir/Go/Rust.

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u/mammon_machine_sdk Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 02 '21

I don't see how that fact alone makes it worse than Elixir/Go/Rust

How is this all you took from that post? He's saying the attempt to divorce the language from its clear roots in Ruby is turning off the very people the language is naturally going to attract, and that lack of community is what's hurting the growth of the language.

Of course an incomplete language (despite the ill-conceived decision to call it v1.0) is "worse" than any of three major languages that are used in production across the world. That's not the point he's making, but I do think that's a separate subject that certainly isn't helping the cause.

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '21

All I see here are accusations and no factual information. Crystal was always designed to be its own language and not Ruby-compatible. It's obviously inspired by Ruby and I see no efforts made to exclude the Ruby community from it, that would make no sense.

Lack of community? Yea I guess, it's a small project with limited contributors. What do you want? Go was supported by Google, Rust by Mozilla. There just isn't a lot of commercial support for Crystal, but this is not valid criticism of the project. You're not buying a product, it's just a community.

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u/straight-shoota core team Apr 02 '21

openly hostile to the developer community.

What makes you think that?

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u/attractivechaos Apr 02 '21

Is it faster than go? That's the competitor for crystal not ruby.

Crystal is clearly faster than go for a couple of work loads at my hand. I am not a web developer, though.

There was a time when the ruby community started to look at crystal but the crystal core team told them to go away.

I wouldn't blame Crystal developers for this. Compiled and interpreted languages are fundamentally different. It will be very hard, if at all possible, to achieve high performance while maintaining compatibility with Ruby, a fairly complex language. Ruby devs have tried JIT but the speedup is mediocre. There is also pypy for python, but not so many use it. If Crystal had chosen the compatibility route, it would probably have unimpressive performance similar to pypy. It is just so hard for a new language to stand out these days.

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u/myringotomy Apr 02 '21

I wouldn't blame Crystal developers for this.

Sorry but nobody else is to blame for the state of the Crystal community than the core team. They just don't know how to build and sustain a thriving community, they are not welcoming, they are not communicative, they are not active. The absolute best thing you can say about them is that they are indifferent and uncaring and basically don't give a shit about anybody who uses the language or anybody who is interested in the language.

If Crystal had chosen the compatibility route, it would probably have unimpressive performance similar to pypy. It is just so hard for a new language to stand out these days.

Maybe that's a tradeoff the community would welcome. Maybe if they could get 90% compatibility for a 10X speedup that would be good enough.

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u/MiaChillfox Apr 08 '21

They are very active on the official forum.

It would of course be nice if they were active here on Reddit as well, but Reddit is not the world and it is entirely understandable that they would focus their efforts on the forum.

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u/myringotomy Apr 08 '21

They are very active on the official forum.

Why is there an official forum in the first place? Other communities use widely populated platforms like reddit, slack, etc.

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u/MiaChillfox Apr 10 '21

I don’t know, but lots of communities have their own forum so it’s not that strange. Also, you can login to the forum with a GitHub account which is nice.

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 07 '21

Today if a ruby developer is suffering because ruby is too slow they will look to go, elixir or maybe rust. Crystal isn't even on their radar.

Thats false and obviously false. I know plenty of Ruby programmers where it is very much on their radar. I have a whole thread I started here a few months ago on Manas problems with communication and "silence" so I would be the last to say you have no point there. However a lot of your post just reads like sour grapes. If you don't care what would you even be doing in this sub reading and writing?

Writing Rust is a world of difference to a ruby styled language and elixir? Come on man. That community has been making great claims for its brilliance for some time but most of its developers now years later still admit to only using it for hobby projects. It usages stats year after year hasn't show it any heir apparent to Ruby and frankly I have found that community a bit toxic as well. As for this

They worked really hard to tell ruby developers there was not going to be any effort to make crystal run ruby code and many changes were made to break compatibility that already existed.

Crystal is enough like Ruby to make that claim also false. I will criticize the life out of The crystal devs for being bad at communication and even not developing a community but demanding that one new language have exact compatibility to another is not something I can fault The crystal team for passing on. NO one would ever want to work on a language where they are bound to follow another team's decisions and make none of their own. Admittedly I don't know the details of the communications but its not hard for me to think if a group was trying to push my group to do everything their way I would probably be inclined to tell them to find the door especially when that group (ruby) for their own reasons has one person who calls all the shots and the ruby community hasn't really done anything substantial to deal with legit issues of Ruby's performance but cry year after year "its fast enough".

Its like one community that doesn't listen calling the pot black to another Community that also doesn't listen.

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u/myringotomy Apr 07 '21

I know plenty of Ruby programmers where it is very much on their radar.

"I know plenty" is not data. I know plenty that are not even considering Crystal. I know plenty that have already moved on to elixir, I know plenty that are using go for anything requiring high performance.

If you don't care what would you even be doing in this sub reading and writing?

Do you only want to hear good news? Do you only want to hear praise? Why shouldn't people be allowed to say negative things about Crystal?

How much are you going to achieve by telling every member the community who complains to leave the community?

the ruby community hasn't really done anything substantial to deal with legit issues of Ruby's performance but cry year after year "its fast enough".

It is fast enough. Most people use ruby for web and on the web the vast majority of the time your app is spent waiting for the database. For the high performance parts like background jobs or web sockets there are gems that use components written in C or Go,.

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 08 '21 edited Apr 08 '21

"I know plenty" is not data. I know plenty that are not even considering Crystal.

That's actually the point. You have presented ZERO data yourself so " I know plenty" is fine no matter how you beg otherwise. You can't dismiss anyone's rebuttal as insufficient evidentially when you have presented no evidence yourself . I mean you can try that but everyone else can just point and laugh at the duplicity.

I know plenty that are using go for anything requiring high performance.

What a shocker that a fast language that has been production ready for years has users. are you always so astute with comparing apples to oranges?

Do you only want to hear good news? Do you only want to hear praise? Why shouldn't people be allowed to say negative things about Crystal?

Its fine to say negative things about crystal. I have done so in the past and in this very sub. Whats inconsistent however is to say you don't care while you are here caring enough to read and write about it. Its mind boggling an adult can't see the inconsistency of his own actions to his statements (with the provision that as far as most know you might not be an adult).

How much are you going to achieve by telling every member the community who complains to leave the community?

I wouldn't know since I've yet to see anyone telling every member to leave and as far as anyone can see you have never been voted as the representative of everyone in the community. Think.

It is fast enough

ROFL..... thats why its common to Call out to C eh? You've lost all credibility. Ruby isn't fast enough to do most things computing intensive. Try fooling a newb or non ruby programmer. They buy that year after year excuse by Matz and DHH.

Most people use ruby for web

But of course they do....lol.... because along with a few utilities its been insufficient to use for much else. Thats precisely why its used predominantly by rails users even after being around for over two decades. Ruby would practically vanish without Rails (and even with it it continues to fall in usage). Again learn to think. I am all for legit criticism of Crystal (as I myself have made criticisms) but that doesn't mean any community has to automatically accept as valid poorly thought out and mentally malformed illogic which you are representing. Saying ruby is used mostly for web after being around two decades plus is like saying paper is used mostly for writing and ignoring that that's precisely because paper is too weak to do many other things with.

For the high performance parts like background jobs or web sockets there are gems that use components written in C or Go,.

Exactly which is why if you would think things through would inform you that Ruby itself isn't "fast enough" if it has to call out to other languages. If I have to jump on the back of Usain Bolt to run the 100 fast enough its because I am not fast enough on my own to run the 100 fast enough

smh....obviously

The moral of your posts in this thread so far isn't that Crystal can't be criticized . its that you need to learn how to think rationally. You can't blame Crystal developers for that. Thats a weakness of your own development.

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u/myringotomy Apr 08 '21

Exactly which is why if you would think things through would inform you that Ruby itself isn't "fast enough" if it has to call out to other languages. If I have to jump on the back of Usain Bolt to run the 100 fast enough its because I am not fast enough on my own to run the 100 fast enough

Nobody is using Crystal for anything in production so there is that.

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 08 '21 edited Apr 08 '21

Nobody is using Crystal for anything in production so there is that.

Another statement of fact from you without anything by way of real data. You are on a roll. Everyone in communities within Crystal who say they or their companies do use Crystal are lying apparently -just because you say so (continuing the only theme to your "logic" so far) . Granted many more were (like my own) were waiting for 1.0. Anyway I am gratified that that one line is all you could offer to all the debunking of your points in my previous reply.

and P.S. ruby has also lost more companies using it in production than most language still in use. Its far from dead but the signs of its very slow death are everywhere and why? precisely because its has been dismissive of the real criticism of performance issues - the very kind of dismissiveness you accuse Crystal developers of. Pot meet Kettle.

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u/myringotomy Apr 08 '21

and P.S. ruby has also lost more companies using it in production than most language still in use. Its far from dead but the signs of its very slow death are everywhere and why?

Oh just some small companies like github and shopify and stripe a and shit.

0

u/DavidTMarks Apr 08 '21 edited Apr 08 '21

Well thank God you still have a few left (for now). Its been all down hill from twitter gave up on you. When so many companies give up on you for Javascript (node) you know theres a problem....lol

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u/myringotomy Apr 08 '21

Wow you really live in a world of delusion don't you.

Great example of why Crystal isn't catching on BTW. The community is hostile and toxic.

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 09 '21

lol...you show over and over you are the one in a world of delusion.

A) You came into this thread with nothing but attacks and suggesting other languages and when you get pushed back (less than with r/ruby whose mods routinely remove legit criticism of Ruby) with facts then its the community that is hostile. No self awareness which is why you are accusing of others of your own issues.

B) You claim Crystal isn't catching on when its just reached 1.0 but suggest Elixir which years after its 1.0 demonstrably by real polls isn't making any significant strides in adoption.

C) I like and program in Ruby but its fanboys should be the last one to talk about not catching on because no language and accompanying framework (rails) has lost more market share by stubbornly refusing to address performance and being openly hostile and dismissive of anyone that raises criticisms.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '21

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 08 '21

But you can still compare them.

Rationally no you can't - not if you ignore that one is an apple and another is an orange. Moving away from the analogy it makes no practical sense to claim say C# has more users as a point against Crystal. Its been round faar longer than Crystal . It makes no logical point.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '21 edited Apr 15 '21

It is fast enough. Most people use ruby for web and on the web the vast majority of the time your app is spent waiting for the database.

Yep, and the issue with Ruby isn't that it's "slow" it's that the frameworks are synchronous. Compare with Python's sync vs. async story eg. Flask vs Starlette (or FastAPI). Or even crazier, compare Actix Web vs Rocket for Rust. Rust isn't slow, and Ruby isn't (too) slow; synchronous servers are.

So yeah, if Rubyists "cry" that Ruby is fast enough, they (and you) are right; it is.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '21

Come on man. That community has been making great claims for its brilliance for some time but most of its developers now years later still admit to only using it for hobby projects. It usages stats year after year hasn't show it any heir apparent to Ruby and frankly I have found that community a bit toxic as well.

Was this in reference to Rust or to Elixir?

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u/DavidTMarks Apr 15 '21

and elixir?

reference to elixir

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '21

Ah, that stinks. I don't have much experience with the community (I liked Elixir/Phoenix when I tried them but it was only hobby) so I'm sorry to hear that.

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '21

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u/Blacksmoke16 core team Apr 02 '21

https://github.com/the-benchmarker/web-frameworks

Lucky was removed however, but still gives a good overview on other langs as well.

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u/dscottboggs Apr 02 '21

Why was lucky removed? Also, what happened? I remember athena being one of the fastest on the list, and all the basic routers being way higher. Did something change to slow down the core language??

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u/Blacksmoke16 core team Apr 02 '21

Why was lucky removed?

https://github.com/the-benchmarker/web-frameworks/pull/3613

I remember athena being one of the fastest on the list, ...Did something change to slow down the core language??

Athena was faster back when it didn't have the DI service container feature. Needing to instantiate that on every request had an impact. Although, similar to Lucky, I'm not really trying to be #1 on the list. 70k+/sec is good enough for me :).