A zero-dependency implementation of the JDK com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer specification with a few significant enhancements.
It adds websocket support using modified source from nanohttpd.
It has basic server-side proxy support using ProxyHandler.
ProxyHandler also supports tunneling proxies using CONNECT for https.
It supports Http2 RFC 9113
All async functionality has been removed. All synchronized blocks were removed in favor of other Java concurrency concepts.
The end result is an implementation that easily integrates with Virtual Threads available in JDK 21 - simply set a virtual thread based ExecutorService.
Improved performance by more than 10x over the JDK implementation, using http pipelining, optimized String parsing, etc.
Designed for embedding with only a 90kb jar and zero dependencies.
The JDK httpserver implementation has no support for connection upgrades, so it is not possible to add websocket support.
Additionally, the code still has a lot of async - e.g. using SSLEngine to provide SSL support - which makes it more difficult to understand and enhance.
The streams based processing and thread per connection design simplifies the code substantially.
Nearly all of the tests were included from the JDK so this version should be highly compliant and reliable.
Set the default HttpServer provider when starting the jvm:
-Dcom.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServerProvider=robaho.net.httpserver.DefaultHttpServerProvider
or instantiate the server directly using this.
or the service loader will automatically find it when the jar is placed on the class path when using the standard HttpServer service provider.
** updated 11/22/2024: retested using JDK 23. The results for the JDK version dropped dramatically because I was able to resolve the source of the errors (incorrect network configuration) - and now the robaho version is more than 10x faster.
This version performs more than 10x better than the JDK version when tested using the Tech Empower Benchmarks on an identical hardware/work setup with the same JDK 23 version.1
The frameworks were also tested using go-wrk2
1The robaho version has been submitted to the Tech Empower benchmarks project for 3-party confirmation.
2go-wrk does not use http pipelining so, the large number of connections is the limiting factor.
robaho tech empower
robertengels@macmini go-wrk % wrk -H 'Host: imac' -H 'Accept: text/plain,text/html;q=0.9,application/xhtml+xml;q=0.9,application/xml;q=0.8,*/*;q=0.7' -H 'Connection: keep-alive' --latency -d 60 -c 64 --timeout 8 -t 2 http://imac:8080/plaintext -s ~/pipeline.lua -- 16
Running 1m test @ http://imac:8080/plaintext
2 threads and 64 connections
Thread Stats Avg Stdev Max +/- Stdev
Latency 1.20ms 9.22ms 404.09ms 85.37%
Req/Sec 348.78k 33.28k 415.03k 71.46%
Latency Distribution
50% 0.98ms
75% 1.43ms
90% 0.00us
99% 0.00us
41709198 requests in 1.00m, 5.52GB read
Requests/sec: 693983.49
Transfer/sec: 93.98MB
jdk 23 tech empower
robertengels@macmini go-wrk % wrk -H 'Host: imac' -H 'Accept: text/plain,text/html;q=0.9,application/xhtml+xml;q=0.9,application/xml;q=0.8,*/*;q=0.7' -H 'Connection: keep-alive' --latency -d 60 -c 64 --timeout 8 -t 2 http://imac:8080/plaintext -s ~/pipeline.lua -- 16
Running 1m test @ http://imac:8080/plaintext
2 threads and 64 connections
Thread Stats Avg Stdev Max +/- Stdev
Latency 2.91ms 12.01ms 405.70ms 63.71%
Req/Sec 114.30k 18.07k 146.91k 87.10%
Latency Distribution
50% 4.06ms
75% 0.00us
90% 0.00us
99% 0.00us
13669748 requests in 1.00m, 1.72GB read
Requests/sec: 227446.87
Transfer/sec: 29.28MB
robaho go-wrk
robertengels@macmini go-wrk % ./go-wrk -c=1024 -d=30 -T=100000 http://imac:8080/plaintext
Running 30s test @ http://imac:8080/plaintext
1024 goroutine(s) running concurrently
3252278 requests in 30.118280233s, 387.70MB read
Requests/sec: 107983.52
Transfer/sec: 12.87MB
Overall Requests/sec: 105891.53
Overall Transfer/sec: 12.62MB
Fastest Request: 83µs
Avg Req Time: 9.482ms
Slowest Request: 1.415359s
Number of Errors: 0
10%: 286µs
50%: 1.018ms
75%: 1.272ms
99%: 1.436ms
99.9%: 1.441ms
99.9999%: 1.442ms
99.99999%: 1.442ms
stddev: 35.998ms
jdk 23 go-wrk
robertengels@macmini go-wrk % ./go-wrk -c=1024 -d=30 -T=100000 http://imac:8080/plaintext
Running 30s test @ http://imac:8080/plaintext
1024 goroutine(s) running concurrently
264198 requests in 30.047154195s, 29.73MB read
Requests/sec: 8792.78
Transfer/sec: 1013.23KB
Overall Requests/sec: 8595.99
Overall Transfer/sec: 990.55KB
Fastest Request: 408µs
Avg Req Time: 116.459ms
Slowest Request: 1.930495s
Number of Errors: 0
10%: 1.166ms
50%: 1.595ms
75%: 1.725ms
99%: 1.827ms
99.9%: 1.83ms
99.9999%: 1.83ms
99.99999%: 1.83ms
stddev: 174.373ms
The server tracks some basic statistics. To enable the access endpoint /__stats, set the system property robaho.net.httpserver.EnableStatistics=true.
Sample usage:
$ curl http://localhost:8080/__stats
Connections: 4264
Active Connections: 2049
Requests: 2669256
Requests/sec: 73719
Handler Exceptions: 0
Socket Exceptions: 0
Mac Connections Exceeded: 0
Idle Closes: 0
Reply Errors: 0The counts can be reset using /__stats?reset. The requests/sec is calculated from the previous statistics request.
<dependency>
<groupId>io.github.robaho</groupId>
<artifactId>httpserver</artifactId>
<version>1.0.13</version>
</dependency>Http2 support is enabled via Java system properties.
Use -Drobaho.net.httpserver.http2OverSSL=true to enable Http2 only via SSL connections.
Use -Drobaho.net.httpserver.http2OverNonSSL=true to enable Http2 on Non-SSL connections (which requires prior knowledge). The Http2 upgrade mechanism was deprecated in RFC 9113 so it is not supported.
See the additional Http2 options in ServerConfig.java
The http2 implementation passes all specification tests in h2spec
Http2 performance has not yet been optimized, but an unscientific test shows the http2 implementation to have greater than 2x better throughput than the Javalin/Jetty 11 version.
Still, the http2 version is almost 3x slower than the http1 version. I expect this to be the case with most http2 implementations.
The Javalin/Jetty project is available here
performance details
All tests were run on the same hardware with the same JDK23 version.
Using h2load -n 1000000 -m 1000 -c 16 [--h1] http://localhost:<port>
Jetty 11 http2
starting benchmark...
spawning thread #0: 16 total client(s). 1000000 total requests
Application protocol: h2c
finished in 5.25s, 190298.69 req/s, 6.72MB/s
requests: 1000000 total, 1000000 started, 1000000 done, 1000000 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 errored, 0 timeout
status codes: 1000000 2xx, 0 3xx, 0 4xx, 0 5xx
traffic: 35.29MB (37003264) total, 7.63MB (8002384) headers (space savings 90.12%), 10.49MB (11000000) data
min max mean sd +/- sd
time for request: 160us 52.24ms 7.76ms 3.94ms 67.73%
time for connect: 235us 8.82ms 4.73ms 2.68ms 62.50%
time to 1st byte: 11.16ms 33.62ms 20.95ms 9.28ms 50.00%
req/s : 11894.25 12051.63 11957.08 58.94 56.25%
Jetty 11 http1
starting benchmark...
spawning thread #0: 16 total client(s). 1000000 total requests
Application protocol: http/1.1
finished in 3.67s, 272138.02 req/s, 35.56MB/s
requests: 1000000 total, 1000000 started, 1000000 done, 1000000 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 errored, 0 timeout
status codes: 1000000 2xx, 0 3xx, 0 4xx, 0 5xx
traffic: 130.65MB (137000000) total, 86.78MB (91000000) headers (space savings 0.00%), 10.49MB (11000000) data
min max mean sd +/- sd
time for request: 831us 189.78ms 57.30ms 21.98ms 71.20%
time for connect: 152us 4.21ms 2.19ms 1.24ms 62.50%
time to 1st byte: 4.85ms 11.73ms 7.11ms 2.29ms 81.25%
req/s : 17010.42 17843.23 17334.96 260.43 50.00%
robaho http2
starting benchmark...
spawning thread #0: 16 total client(s). 1000000 total requests
Application protocol: h2c
finished in 2.20s, 453632.21 req/s, 19.04MB/s
requests: 1000000 total, 1000000 started, 1000000 done, 1000000 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 errored, 0 timeout
status codes: 1000000 2xx, 0 3xx, 0 4xx, 0 5xx
traffic: 41.96MB (44000480) total, 5.72MB (6000000) headers (space savings 76.92%), 10.49MB (11000000) data
min max mean sd +/- sd
time for request: 347us 51.17ms 16.98ms 10.52ms 59.21%
time for connect: 228us 8.77ms 4.02ms 2.44ms 62.50%
time to 1st byte: 9.46ms 22.61ms 12.61ms 4.81ms 81.25%
req/s : 28353.29 29288.55 28542.35 229.27 87.50%
robaho http1
starting benchmark...
spawning thread #0: 16 total client(s). 1000000 total requests
Application protocol: http/1.1
finished in 802.36ms, 1246317.13 req/s, 103.41MB/s
requests: 1000000 total, 1000000 started, 1000000 done, 1000000 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 errored, 0 timeout
status codes: 1001066 2xx, 0 3xx, 0 4xx, 0 5xx
traffic: 82.97MB (87000000) total, 46.73MB (49000000) headers (space savings 0.00%), 10.49MB (11000000) data
min max mean sd +/- sd
time for request: 860us 35.46ms 12.61ms 3.33ms 75.21%
time for connect: 92us 4.06ms 2.06ms 1.21ms 62.50%
time to 1st byte: 4.68ms 18.67ms 10.85ms 4.88ms 50.00%
req/s : 77913.01 80438.10 78458.60 721.68 81.25%