Static Web Hosting on the Intel N150: FreeBSD, SmartOS, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linu
3 days ago
- #operating-systems
- #performance-benchmark
- #static-hosting
- The author discusses their approach to infrastructure requests, preferring BSDs or illumos for competent technicians, and Linux for those needing control panels or specific stacks.
- They express skepticism about benchmarks, noting they rarely reflect real-world performance, but occasionally run comparative tests for practical insights.
- A recent test focused on static web hosting performance across various operating systems (SmartOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Debian, Alpine) using nginx with default settings.
- Results showed minimal differences in HTTP performance across native/jail setups (~63-64k req/s), with SmartOS LX zones slightly slower (~46-49k req/s).
- HTTPS performance revealed more divergence: FreeBSD, Debian, and Alpine excelled (~62-63k req/s), with FreeBSD using less CPU. SmartOS, NetBSD, and OpenBSD were slower (~39-53k req/s) and maxed CPU earlier.
- FreeBSD jails and SmartOS native zones had negligible overhead, while LX zones introduced modest performance costs due to system call translation.
- The author concludes that for static HTTP, OS choice matters little, but TLS performance favors FreeBSD or modern Linux. Real-world decisions should prioritize team expertise, tooling, and operational comfort over benchmarks.