# WebSockets vs Oxygen.jl

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/websockets-vs-oxygen-jl/109146>\
**Category:** Web Stack\
**Tags:** sockets, oxygenjl\
**Created:** [January 23, 2024, 3:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/websockets-vs-oxygen-jl/109146 "2024-01-23T15:00:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![yakir12](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/yakir12/32/297_2.png) [@yakir12](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/yakir12)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 3:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/websockets-vs-oxygen-jl/109146/1 "2024-01-23T15:00:55Z")

</div>

I’m sure I’m doing something silly and wrong, I’m just not sure what.

In the following two MWE, a server is sending a 1 MB payload a hundrad times to one client, all within the same Julia session (`v1.10.0` single thread).

The `HTTP.WebSockets` (`HTTP v1.10.1`) are performing 6 times worse than `Oxygen.jl` (`v1.4.5`), and I’m not sure why. I thought websockets were supposed to be faster than http requests…?

Here’s the websocket MWE:

```julia
using HTTP.WebSockets

const payload = Vector{UInt8}(undef, 10^6) # 1 MB

server = WebSockets.listen!("127.0.0.0", 8000) do ws
    for msg in ws
        send(ws, payload)
    end
end

n = 100
WebSockets.open("ws://127.0.0.0:8000") do ws
    send(ws, UInt8(1))
    t = @elapsed begin
        for (_, msg) in zip(1:n, ws)
            send(ws, UInt8(1))
        end
    end
    fps = n/t
    @show fps
end;

```

and here’s the oxygen one:

```julia
using Oxygen
using HTTP

const payload = Vector{UInt8}(undef, 10^6) # 1 MB

@get "/" function(req::HTTP.Request)
    binary(payload)
end

Threads.@spawn serve()

n = 100
t = @elapsed begin
    for i in 1:n
        HTTP.open("GET", "http://127.0.0.1:8080/") do io
            while !eof(io)
                read(io, 10^6)
            end
        end
    end
end
fps = n/t
@show fps

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jeff\_Emanuel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jeff_emanuel/32/15440_2.png) [@Jeff\_Emanuel](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Jeff_Emanuel)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/websockets-vs-oxygen-jl/109146/2 "2024-01-23T16:18:56Z")

</div>

> [@yakir12](#):
>
> websockets were supposed to be faster than http requests

The benefit of WebSockets is a persistent bidirectional connection that should not experience latency to reconnect for many messages. By testing with both client and server or localhost, you bypass most network latency when reconnecting.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yakir12](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/yakir12/32/297_2.png) [@yakir12](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/yakir12)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 8:32am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/websockets-vs-oxygen-jl/109146/3 "2024-01-24T08:32:38Z")

</div>

But if reconnection-latency is absent in my setup for both websockets and http, then why would http be so much faster than websockets? I understand that reconnection-latency explains why the http version in my setup is faster than http out in the wild, but not why it should be faster than websockets.

I’ve now tested this further by putting the server part of the code on a Raspberry Pi. I then connected the RPI and my laptop (with the client part of the code) to the same router. In this configuration, the oxygen-http version still performed about three times faster than the websocket one.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xgdgsc](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/xgdgsc/32/608_2.png) [@xgdgsc](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xgdgsc)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 8:45am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/websockets-vs-oxygen-jl/109146/4 "2024-01-24T08:45:31Z")

</div>

[Websocket performance optimization · Issue #1140 · JuliaWeb/HTTP.jl (github.com)](https://github.com/JuliaWeb/HTTP.jl/issues/1140)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yakir12](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/yakir12/32/297_2.png) [@yakir12](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/yakir12)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 8:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/websockets-vs-oxygen-jl/109146/5 "2024-01-24T08:53:13Z")

</div>

In my case, adding

```julia
Sockets.nagle(ws.io.io, false)
Sockets.quickack(ws.io.io, true)

```

had no noticeable effect.