Comments: 227 +- Apache: Opera Unite Web Server Benchmarked on Thursday June 18, @09:40PM
worb writes "Opera Unite comes with a web server which is supposedly going to 'redefine the web.' But how well does it actually perform? Is it a threat to other server solutions? Someone put it to the test, and published the results. While nginx, one of the fastest web servers available, is 5 times faster, a PHP+Apache+MySQL server is only 2 times as fast. A compiled C++ server, the MadFish WebToolkit, is 6 times faster. He concludes that Opera Unite's server is impressive, and that the others come nowhere close to the ease of use."
Related Stories
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?"
-- The Doctor
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.
Misleading, again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. It sounds like it's great at what it's meant to do, get the job done and get it done easily.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you say "huge honking security hole"?
Re:Misleading, again (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you say "huge honking security hole"?
Every server is a security hole waiting to be fixed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you say "huge honking security hole"?
Every server is a security hole waiting to be fixed.
Ultimate security = bolt cutters.
I Call Shenanigans (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you say "huge honking security hole"?
The great news is there are viable replacements for this reference to Microsoft's operating system. Debian, BSD's, maybe some other Linux distro are more than capable of serving and Opera runs on all of them.
Another Opera summary that's mostly flamebait. That's disappointing because it's a good idea whose time has been very long in coming.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, how so? That sounds to me like a succinct description of what a web server is supposed to do. Phrased differently, the "for dummies" definition of a web server is a program that you point at a directory, and it makes everything under that directory available via the Web. This isn't a security hole; it's exactly what a web server is used for. It's only a security hole if outsiders can use
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Amen.
The Opera Unite service has several features so far: web server, file sharer, music streamer, fridge notes, lounge... It's direct communication for everyday users who will be able to host their own sites, files, music, photos locally on their home computers. Said content will be available as long as Unite is running. When Unite is not running or the computer is off, there's nothing being shared. Why all the fuss? it's easy to understand. Don't like it? Don't use it. The service is what it is, not a pro
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Disturbing trend (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Disturbing trend (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm disturbed by the centralization taking place on the web, where by networks like email are replaced with proprietary walled-garden social networks, and entire webpages once written in the open html standard are being done entirely in flash.
I know! For example, Facebook has made it completely impossible to deploy and host one's own website. They simply *force* you to put everything in their system. And don't get me started on the likes of Twitter, which has forced everyone to stop using Twitter in favour of their system. I mean, at least if I could *choose*, but you can't because they can control your *mind*! Yes, very disturbing indeed...
Parent
Re:Disturbing trend (Score:5, Insightful)
You aren't taking network effects into account. I'm young, and most of my friends are in their 20s. Some of them never check their emails, and insist that I send everything to them through myspace. Why? Because all of their friends use myspace too, and none of their friends email that often. So yeah, I have the choice of emailing my friends, but their dependence on myspace forces my hand. We all have a choice, but these mediums have generated enough momentum already that it's very hard to get by when using the alternatives.
Parent
Yeah, right . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
and most of my friends are in their 20s. Some of them never check their emails
I'm guessing none of your friends either work or are at college. Try telling your boss or University sysadmin that you don't want customer emails or system notices because you won't read them unless they are sent via mySpace . . . No job/Slap around the face will quickly ensue!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yeah, right . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed.
I don't know of any White Collar jobs that do NOT revolve around e-mail as a primary communication source, and even some Blue collar jobs are going that way.
In fact, in many companies the on-site use of "social networking" websites such as My Space and Facebook are strictly prohibited and/or filtered out using Websense or some such network product.
So truly, It sounds very much like nausea_malvarma's friends are all college kids about to get whacked by the reality of having to always use regular e-mail.
Oh, and one last thing, it isn't ad-hominem if it's both true and relevant to the discussion at hand.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What? Your friends are obviously a bit simple. Oh, all of my friends use myspace, I'd better do that as well and ignore email. This scenario that you suggest, suggests to me that you need new friends. Or, get a bunch of friends who actually have a job other than flipping burgers at McDonalds. And why are you letting you friends "force your hand"? That's crazy. Be more sure of yourself and don't give in to their idiot tendencies. Send them emails and force their hand.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Goddamn, how difficult is it? If they demand you use MySpace, fine, post a message on MySpace:
"check your email"
No one is forcing you to use MySpace, you're making that choice.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Years ago, I remember certain broadband ISPs would probe certain ports on the customer's side (HTTP, FTP, etc) and do a variety of dickhead
Re:Disturbing trend (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Disturbing trend (Score:4, Informative)
So I can just download Opera and have it all work with out an Opera account? Nope, won't work, sorry. whoever is sharing HAS to have an Opera account.
So tell me mods, how exactly is this offtopic? he claimed that it would "decentralize the web" and I pointed out in the very article that was on Slashodt yesterday, and I again quote "Although Opera Unite claims to "directly link people's personal computers together," to use it you need an account on Opera's servers, and all of your exchanges pass through Opera's servers first.That's an effective way to get around technical difficulties like NAT firewalls, but more important, it makes Opera the intermediary in your social interactions -- not Facebook, not MySpace, but Opera."
Don't believe me? Read [infoworld.com] it yourself. The simple fact is if you have NAT there is NO WAY to use this at all without Opera servers as the MiTM, okay? And who doesn't use NAT in this day and age? Hell even my 67 year old dad who doesn't have a fricking clue about computers has a wireless router doing NAT.
So mod me down ALL you want, I've got enough karma to burn for centuries. Did I say Opera was bad? Nope, my oldest won't even touch anything else. But don't lie and say the sky is pink when it is blue. The simple fact is you CAN'T use this new feature without an Opera account. Sorry, but it just don't work, because it was designed to go through Opera's servers. So all you are doing with Opera Unite is moving the central server from Facebook to Opera. Sorry, but that doesn't sound very revolutionary to me.
Parent
Re:Disturbing trend (Score:5, Informative)
all of your exchanges pass through Opera's servers first.
Only if you're behind NAT, and your router isn't configured to allow UPnP.
Otherwise, individual connections are truly peer-to-peer. Opera servers don't get involved. They are only used to publish the list of services available for your account, not to access them (except for the NAT workaround).
Parent
Re:Disturbing trend (Score:4, Informative)
[...] he claimed that it would "decentralize the web" and I pointed out in the very article that was on Slashodt yesterday, and I again quote "Although Opera Unite claims to "directly link people's personal computers together," to use it you need an account on Opera's servers, and all of your exchanges pass through Opera's servers first.That's an effective way to get around technical difficulties like NAT firewalls, but more important, it makes Opera the intermediary in your social interactions [...] But don't lie and say the sky is pink when it is blue. The simple fact is you CAN'T use this new feature without an Opera account. Sorry, but it just don't work, because it was designed to go through Opera's servers. So all you are doing with Opera Unite is moving the central server from Facebook to Opera. Sorry, but that doesn't sound very revolutionary to me.
You're mixing a lot of half-truths in there.Opera Unite does directly link peoples computers together. Period. It _also_ acts as an intermediary where they can't use UPnP or in other situations. Opera also creates the links that direct people to the service you're hosting from your browser.
You _can_ use the features of Unite without an account, any browser can access my Unite fileshare with the write password and URL; same goes for accessing photos, media, chat. Oh, right, you want to host a service (with 3 clicks of your mouse!) on the internet without signing up for anything, good luck with that. Even backbone connections have peering contracts - every internet service has to sign up for something.
Remembering that this is a first alpha I think Opera has started a mass decentralisation of the internet, the peerweb as it were. I give it a few months before Opera Unite will connect to other intermediaries and perhaps a year before you can host that same intermediary on a box inside your firewall.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
and you're restricted from hosting content that they consider "obscene, vulgar, hateful, threatening, or that violates any laws"
Dude... You're talking about a company residing in Norway. The third largest export after oil and salmon is Black Metal [norsksvartmetall.com]. Which is kind of bizarre, as Norwegian is probably one of the most cheerful languages there is.
Re:Disturbing trend (Score:5, Informative)
I'm surprised to see that people are still linking to this. It's basically full of errors, and was written in rage [opera.com] over all the hype Unite was getting. He was angry about how people just repeated Opera's claims blindly. Kind of like you are blindly referring to his blog post even though it turns out that the post is too inaccurate to really be used for anything.
You really should read some of the comments on the page you are linking to, in order to see people correcting all the misconceptions. For example the misconception that everything goes through a proxy, as you claim it does. Furthermore Chris's comments where fun until Haavard took him down a notch on his own blog, resulting in Chris himself posting on Haavard's blog with a massively different tone.
Parent
It's a toy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it a threat to other server solutions?
In one word, No.
In more words, can it run apps written in PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, etc. with SQL server database back ends? No.
Can it be load-balanced, clustered, etc. on servers in a data center? Well, maybe if you tried hard enough. Heck, you do anything if you try hard enough. But in one word, No.
Re:It's a toy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Stupid benchmark (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary conflated a web server with a database and a programming language (PHP+Apache+MySQL) when discussing benchmarking of just a web server.
I'll go ahead and assume that the article isn't worth reading.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stupid benchmark (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
I feel vindicated to some extent (Score:5, Interesting)
...He concludes that Opera Unite's server is impressive, and that the others come nowhere close to the ease of use...
When I suggested that Apache needed some thing near to easy configuration, I was labeled a troll and requested not to tinker with such a server if I did not know what I was doing. By the way, I know Apache has some configuration GUIs but none comes close to Opera's offer.
In fact, I was castigated for being one of those who crave "point and click" interfaces that are "responsible" for most of the chaos on the internet.
I am happy that I have one fellow who agrees with me. I will not be surprised if Opera's web server snatches market share from the established ones.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As others have mentioned, to serve pages to anyone other than yourself, the requests will be sent through (and approved by) Opera's servers. Unite itself isn't open source, apach
What is this juvenile fascination with speed? (Score:5, Insightful)
How dumb, or seriously ADD,
do you have to be, when the major question you ask about
a new technology is: Yeah, but how fast is it?
"We've invented this program that is smarter than the average bear"
"Yeah, but how fast is it?"
"You don't understand! This baby even knows that you're not SUPPOSED
to fight forest fires!"
"Yeah, but how fast is it?"
Seriously, these speed evaluations are irrelevant, boring, and inane to
the extreme. How about some evaluation of the possible uses this new
technology will be put to, and how its abilities to support these uses
compares to other competing or similar technologies.
"Look at this new amp we've got! Look at this. It goes up to 11! Unbelievable!"
"Yeah, but how fast does it go pedal to the metal, man?"
The real speed test... (Score:5, Insightful)
How long does it take someone unfamiliar with a each web server take to download the required software and serve the first page?
I bet Opera Unite beats the other solutions by a mile.
Websites from behind corporate firewalls (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still an Epic Fail (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Still an Epic Fail (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but maybe this product (and ones already out there and soon to follow) will allow us to expand our idea of what should be web accessible.
For example I wouldn't make my entire MP3 collection web accessible using Google storage space. Why because even though my intention is to use it only so "I" can access all my music anywhere I go, Google might not see it that way. (Or what ever company I happen to have storing my data). With Unite and a few clicks I can have my music available to me and not have to worry about the company hosting it thinking I might be breaking the law.
Parent
Re:Still an Epic Fail (Score:4, Insightful)
"So what? It's a somewhat slow web server. It's easy, guys. If you want to leave your home machine naked to the net, use real and tested server software. If you want to do all the tasks done by Unite but easier, get cheap or free web hosting and a Facebook page."
I'm guessing you haven't actually tried the software. But you know about problems with it already even though it isn't actually a "webserver/daemon" in the classic sense of the word.
That's kinda like saying "I don't like asparagus but I've never tried it because I don't like it".
Maybe it does have a security hole in it. But shouldn't we actually find out first before we just guess and assume that it does?
Security hole. Pffft. BindOutlookXPIEExcel. Life goes on.
Parent
Re:Still an Epic Fail (Score:5, Interesting)
I can set up 40GB+ of music to play via a decent-looking web interface for anyone I send a password and URL to in less than a minute and with 5 or 6 clicks using my Facebook account and some shared web hosting? 'Cuz I did that earlier today with Opera Unite.
I went in to this skeptical, and I barely even used Opera before this (I'm a web developer and, though I admire Opera, I need the tools available in Firefox) but it only took about 5 minutes of tinkering with this thing for me to be sold on it. I believe my exact words on testing the media sharing were "whoa, fuckin' cool!"
Parent
Re:Still an Epic Fail (Score:5, Funny)
I can set up 40GB+ of music to play via a decent-looking web interface for anyone I send a password and URL to
Nobody expects the RIAA inquisition!
Parent
Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about memory usage. In my experience, Opera does better than any other browser there.
Parent
Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi (Score:4, Informative)
Also, with all this extra stuff, it still runs faster and smoother than any previous version of their browser, there is absolutely no feeling of 'bloat'... and when you turn something off, it stays that way, Turbo, Unite, Mail, Widgets, Dragonfly, etc...
v10 alpha was already faster than v9.64, and almost every new snapshot has been quicker/better than the previous.
It's memory footprint isn't really better, but isn't worse than most others... mine's been running for about 4 days since the last time I closed/re-opened it
Current: 161MB
Peak: 398MB
VM: 205MB
Handles: 708
Threads: 26
But I don't care about that, from a cold start it launches in under a second, whereas Safari and Chrome take about 4, IE and FF 3.5 take about 9, I've ran into 0 problems with webpages with Opera v10, but FF 3.5 (just as Beta as Opera) won't even allow Slashdot to work half the time, however it is a bit faster on some sites, like Facebook... Plus, Opera hides in the systray, and stays completely idle until i need it, or it shows me a new RSS, or email... making it show up instantly when asked, which is more important (to me) than any memory footprint.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On my older computers I don't really have another option. I run 500Mhz Celeron comps with 64-128MB RAM running Damn Small Linux regularly. Firefox barely runs with one tab on those systems while Opera is still quick with 4 or 5 tabs. The difference is night and day.
Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi (Score:5, Interesting)
I will say that, as a long time Opera user, Opera 10 is turning into one of the best releases they've ever done. It outperforms Opera 9.x in any way that matters to me. Speed, memory usage, stability. 9.6 was starting to get on my nerves and I was beginning to use Chrome more and more. But 10 has been a dream.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Because I expect browsers to do what the fuck they are told, and I expect to see the expected results from webdevs who are good enough to follow the rules and keep their sites clean.
My browser of choice is Chrome.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
These days, as far as standards compliance goes, you really can't get it wrong unless you go for IE. Between all Gecko-based browsers, all WebKit-based browsers, and Opera, they all support everything that matters. Aside from that, Opera is pretty well-known for implementing web standards early, and actively promoting them. They are one of initiators and major drivers of HTML5, for example.
Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi (Score:5, Informative)
This is an Alpha or Beta. Opera 9.64 (final) is only 5.3MB large.
On my computer Firefox consumes way more memory than Opera - but it has so many extensions and plugins installed, that I'd be surprised if it didn't.
Parent