Replacing PHP-FPM with Nginx Unit
Introduction⌗
Nginx Unit is another masterpiece developed by the Nginx team. Perhaps no one understands better than them how to balance performance and usability between Nginx and Unit.
Indeed, Unit’s most important feature is Flexibility. You can dynamically modify Unit’s runtime configuration using RESTful APIs. When updating configurations, as long as you clearly know what you’re doing, you can ensure zero service interruption.
Most importantly, it implements SAPI, which can replace PHP-FPM’s important position in PHP. Looking at evaluation articles from a few years ago online, it shows several performance advantages compared to PHP-FPM.
So I plan to use Nginx Unit + PHP 8.1 to conduct a comparative performance test.
Building the Runtime Environment⌗
I’m using Docker to build and deploy the Unit service. In the Dockerfile, I installed the MongoDB extension and PHPRedis extension, both using the latest versions.
Dockerfile
FROM php:8.1-cli as BUILDER
LABEL maintainer="NGINX Docker Maintainers <[email protected]>"
RUN set -ex \
&& apt-get update \
&& apt-get install --no-install-recommends --no-install-suggests -y ca-certificates mercurial build-essential libssl-dev libpcre2-dev \
&& mkdir -p /usr/lib/unit/modules /usr/lib/unit/debug-modules \
&& hg clone https://hg.nginx.org/unit \
&& cd unit \
&& hg up 1.26.1 \
&& NCPU="$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN)" \
&& DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH="$(dpkg-architecture -q DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH)" \
&& CC_OPT="$(DEB_BUILD_MAINT_OPTIONS="hardening=+all,-pie" DEB_CFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND="-Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fPIC" dpkg-buildflags --get CFLAGS)" \
&& LD_OPT="$(DEB_BUILD_MAINT_OPTIONS="hardening=+all,-pie" DEB_LDFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND="-Wl,--as-needed -pie" dpkg-buildflags --get LDFLAGS)" \
&& CONFIGURE_ARGS="--prefix=/usr \
--state=/var/lib/unit \
--control=unix:/var/run/control.unit.sock \
--pid=/var/run/unit.pid \
--log=/var/log/unit.log \
--tmp=/var/tmp \
--user=unit \
--group=unit \
--openssl \
--libdir=/usr/lib/$DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH" \
&& ./configure $CONFIGURE_ARGS --cc-opt="$CC_OPT" --ld-opt="$LD_OPT" --modules=/usr/lib/unit/debug-modules --debug \
&& make -j $NCPU unitd \
&& install -pm755 build/unitd /usr/sbin/unitd-debug \
&& make clean \
&& ./configure $CONFIGURE_ARGS --cc-opt="$CC_OPT" --ld-opt="$LD_OPT" --modules=/usr/lib/unit/modules \
&& make -j $NCPU unitd \
&& install -pm755 build/unitd /usr/sbin/unitd \
&& make clean \
&& ./configure $CONFIGURE_ARGS --cc-opt="$CC_OPT" --modules=/usr/lib/unit/debug-modules --debug \
&& ./configure php \
&& make -j $NCPU php-install \
&& make clean \
&& ./configure $CONFIGURE_ARGS --cc-opt="$CC_OPT" --modules=/usr/lib/unit/modules \
&& ./configure php \
&& make -j $NCPU php-install \
&& ldd /usr/sbin/unitd | awk '/=>/{print $(NF-1)}' | while read n; do dpkg-query -S $n; done | sed 's/^\([^:]\+\):.*$/\1/' | sort | uniq > /requirements.apt
FROM php:8.1-cli
COPY docker-entrypoint.sh /usr/local/bin/
COPY --from=BUILDER /usr/sbin/unitd /usr/sbin/unitd
COPY --from=BUILDER /usr/sbin/unitd-debug /usr/sbin/unitd-debug
COPY --from=BUILDER /usr/lib/unit/ /usr/lib/unit/
COPY --from=BUILDER /requirements.apt /requirements.apt
RUN ldconfig
RUN set -x \
&& mkdir -p /var/lib/unit/ \
&& mkdir /docker-entrypoint.d/ \
&& addgroup --system unit \
&& adduser \
--system \
--disabled-login \
--ingroup unit \
--no-create-home \
--home /nonexistent \
--gecos "unit user" \
--shell /bin/false \
unit \
&& apt-get update \
&& apt-get upgrade -y \
&& apt-get --no-install-recommends --no-install-suggests -y install git libzip-dev zip openssl libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev curl $(cat /requirements.apt) \
&& docker-php-ext-install zip \
&& pecl install lzf \
&& pecl install igbinary \
&& pecl install redis \
&& pecl install mongodb \
&& docker-php-ext-enable lzf igbinary redis mongodb \
&& docker-php-ext-install pcntl \
&& docker-php-ext-install pdo_mysql \
&& docker-php-ext-install opcache \
&& docker-php-ext-install exif \
&& apt-get clean && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* /tmp/* /var/tmp/* \
&& rm -f /requirements.apt \
&& rm /var/log/lastlog /var/log/faillog \
&& ln -sf /dev/stdout /var/log/unit.log
# Install Composer
RUN php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');" && \
EXPECTED_CHECKSUM="$(php -r 'copy("https://composer.github.io/installer.sig", "php://stdout");')" && \
php -r "if (hash_file('sha384', 'composer-setup.php') === '$EXPECTED_CHECKSUM') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;" && \
php composer-setup.php && \
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');" && \
mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer && \
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer
# Configure locale.
ARG LOCALE=POSIX
ENV LC_ALL ${LOCALE}
STOPSIGNAL SIGTERM
ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/local/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh"]
CMD ["unitd", "--no-daemon", "--control", "unix:/var/run/control.unit.sock"]
docker-compose.yml
version: "3.8"
services:
unit:
image: unit/php:laravel
build:
context: .
dockerfile: Dockerfile
working_dir: /usr/wwwroot/projects
restart: always
hostname: unit
container_name: unit
ports:
- 80:80
- 443:443
networks:
- services
volumes:
- ./projects:/usr/wwwroot/projects:rw
- ./services/php/8.1/etc:/usr/local/etc
networks:
services:
name: services
ipam:
driver: default
config:
- subnet: 10.0.8.0/24
projects/phpinfo/index.php
<?php
phpinfo();
Building the Image⌗
The directory structure after completing the configuration files is as follows:
$ tree -L 3
.
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── docker-entrypoint.sh
├── php
│ └── etc
│ ├── pear.conf
│ └── php
└── projects
└── phpinfo
└── index.php
15 directories, 12 files
I’ve already put the project on Github, you can clone it if needed.
$ docker-compose up -d
Configuring Unit⌗
{
"listeners": {
"*:80": {
"pass": "routes"
}
},
"routes": [
{
"match": {
"uri": "!/index.php"
},
"action": {
"share": "/usr/wwwroot/projects/phpinfo$uri",
"fallback": {
"pass": "applications/laravel"
}
}
}
],
"applications": {
"laravel": {
"type": "php",
"processes": {
"max": 120,
"spare": 5,
"idle_timeout": 20
},
"root": "/usr/wwwroot/projects/phpinfo/",
"script": "index.php"
}
}
}
Compress the above JSON object into a string, then execute the command below to send the configuration file to Unit.
$ docker exec -it laravel curl -X PUT -d '{"listeners":{"*:80":{"pass":"routes"}},"routes":[{"match":{"uri":"!/index.php"},"action":{"share":"/usr/wwwroot/projects/phpinfo$uri","fallback":{"pass":"applications/laravel"}}}],"applications":{"laravel":{"type":"php","processes":{"max":120,"spare":5,"idle_timeout":20},"root":"/usr/wwwroot/projects/phpinfo/","script":"index.php"}}}' --unix-socket /var/run/control.unit.sock http://localhost/config/
If executed successfully, it will return:
{
"success": "Reconfiguration done."
}
Then access http://localhost to open the phpinfo page.
Performance Comparison⌗
Hardware Configuration⌗
4 cores/8GB network with 100Mbps bandwidth peak, disk is ESSD 40G (2280 IOPS).
Service Configuration⌗
Benchmarking Unit + PHP 8.1.1⌗
ab -n 10000 -c 20 "http://47.100.202.147:8080/"
Server Software: Unit/1.26.1
Server Hostname: 47.100.202.147
Server Port: 8080
Document Path: /
Document Length: 17592 bytes
Concurrency Level: 20
Time taken for tests: 73.888 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 187050000 bytes
HTML transferred: 175920000 bytes
Requests per second: 135.34 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 147.775 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 7.389 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 2472.22 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 6 9 1.3 9 24
Processing: 17 136 716.7 34 5985
Waiting: 10 127 716.7 25 5977
Total: 24 145 716.7 43 5992
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 43
66% 48
75% 51
80% 53
90% 57
95% 62
98% 90
99% 5230
100% 5992 (longest request)
ab -n 10000 -c 50 "http://47.100.202.147:8080/"
Server Software: Unit/1.26.1
Server Hostname: 47.100.202.147
Server Port: 8080
Document Path: /
Document Length: 17592 bytes
Concurrency Level: 50
Time taken for tests: 61.516 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 187050000 bytes
HTML transferred: 175920000 bytes
Requests per second: 162.56 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 307.580 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 6.152 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 2969.41 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 6 10 4.4 9 151
Processing: 20 285 1350.1 99 11801
Waiting: 12 272 1350.4 85 11792
Total: 28 295 1350.1 109 11810
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 109
66% 119
75% 127
80% 132
90% 145
95% 156
98% 198
99% 10018
100% 11810 (longest request)
ab -n 10000 -c 100 "http://47.100.202.147:8080/"
Server Software: Unit/1.26.1
Server Hostname: 47.100.202.147
Server Port: 8080
Document Path: /
Document Length: 17592 bytes
Concurrency Level: 100
Time taken for tests: 57.325 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 187050000 bytes
HTML transferred: 175920000 bytes
Requests per second: 174.45 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 573.247 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 5.732 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 3186.52 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 6 14 10.7 10 79
Processing: 22 515 2178.1 210 18381
Waiting: 13 493 2179.3 190 18364
Total: 31 528 2177.9 223 18394
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 223
66% 254
75% 266
80% 273
90% 293
95% 305
98% 365
99% 16907
100% 18394 (longest request)
Benchmarking Nginx + PHP-FPM + PHP 8.1.1⌗
ab -n 10000 -c 20 "http://47.100.202.147:8081/"
Server Software: nginx
Server Hostname: 47.100.202.147
Server Port: 8081
Document Path: /
Document Length: 17592 bytes
Concurrency Level: 20
Time taken for tests: 76.832 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 187160000 bytes
HTML transferred: 175920000 bytes
Requests per second: 130.15 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 153.663 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 7.683 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 2378.88 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 6 9 1.2 9 27
Processing: 18 141 724.5 39 6025
Waiting: 11 132 724.5 30 6016
Total: 24 150 724.5 48 6035
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 48
66% 52
75% 54
80% 56
90% 61
95% 66
98% 95
99% 5314
100% 6035 (longest request)
ab -n 10000 -c 50 "http://47.100.202.147:8081/"
Server Software: nginx
Server Hostname: 47.100.202.147
Server Port: 8081
Document Path: /
Document Length: 17592 bytes
Concurrency Level: 50
Time taken for tests: 80.285 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 187160000 bytes
HTML transferred: 175920000 bytes
Requests per second: 124.56 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 401.426 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 8.029 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 2276.55 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 6 9 3.9 9 177
Processing: 19 375 1973.8 100 16940
Waiting: 11 362 1974.2 88 16931
Total: 26 384 1973.8 109 16950
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 109
66% 124
75% 134
80% 139
90% 150
95% 162
98% 331
99% 15107
100% 16950 (longest request)
ab -n 10000 -c 100 "http://47.100.202.147:8081/"
Server Software: nginx
Server Hostname: 47.100.202.147
Server Port: 8081
Document Path: /
Document Length: 17592 bytes
Concurrency Level: 100
Time taken for tests: 94.577 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 187160000 bytes
HTML transferred: 175920000 bytes
Requests per second: 105.73 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 945.768 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 9.458 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 1932.54 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 6 13 9.7 9 114
Processing: 22 862 4350.7 226 35655
Waiting: 13 842 4352.0 207 35643
Total: 30 875 4350.6 239 35663
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 239
66% 277
75% 297
80% 307
90% 329
95% 346
98% 19222
99% 32654
100% 35663 (longest request)
| Service | Concurrency | Requests per second | Time per request |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit+PHP 8.1 | 20 | 135.34 | 7.389 |
| Unit+PHP 8.1 | 50 | 162.56 | 6.152 |
| Unit+PHP 8.1 | 100 | 174.45 | 5.732 |
| Nginx+PHP-FPM | 20 | 130.15 | 7.683 |
| Nginx+PHP-FPM | 40 | 124.56 | 8.029 |
| Nginx+PHP-FPM | 100 | 105.73 | 9.458 |
Looking at the data above, the performance difference isn’t as large as imagined, but Unit shows an upward performance trend as concurrency increases, which is interesting. Perhaps this level of concurrency isn’t enough to fully utilize Unit.
Local Testing⌗
Considering it might be due to my local network, I also conducted local tests directly on the server:
ab -n 10000 -c 100 "http://127.0.0.1:8080/"
Server Software: Unit/1.26.1
Server Hostname: 127.0.0.1
Server Port: 8080
Document Path: /
Document Length: 17592 bytes
Concurrency Level: 100
Time taken for tests: 99.609 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 187050000 bytes
HTML transferred: 175920000 bytes
Requests per second: 100.39 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 996.091 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 9.961 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 1833.83 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 0 0 0.1 0 2
Processing: 4 914 5118.6 240 43107
Waiting: 4 912 5118.5 238 43107
Total: 4 914 5118.6 240 43108
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 240
66% 274
75% 295
80% 306
90% 335
95% 369
98% 460
99% 39589
100% 43108 (longest request)
ab -n 10000 -c 100 "http://127.0.0.1:8081/"
Server Software: nginx
Server Hostname: 127.0.0.1
Server Port: 8081
Document Path: /
Document Length: 17592 bytes
Concurrency Level: 100
Time taken for tests: 92.971 seconds
Complete requests: 10000
Failed requests: 0
Total transferred: 187160000 bytes
HTML transferred: 175920000 bytes
Requests per second: 107.56 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 929.709 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 9.297 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 1965.92 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 0 0 0.2 0 3
Processing: 3 854 4601.4 236 38351
Waiting: 3 854 4601.4 236 38351
Total: 3 854 4601.4 236 38351
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 236
66% 282
75% 301
80% 313
90% 336
95% 358
98% 427
99% 35636
100% 38351 (longest request)
Local WRK Benchmark⌗
wrk -t4 -c50 http://localhost:8080
Running 10s test @ http://localhost:8080
4 threads and 50 connections
Thread Stats Avg Stdev Max +/- Stdev
Latency 81.71ms 43.75ms 234.97ms 66.18%
Req/Sec 57.10 52.38 252.00 82.73%
2052 requests in 10.01s, 36.61MB read
Requests/sec: 205.03
Transfer/sec: 3.66MB
wrk -t4 -c50 http://localhost:8081
Running 10s test @ http://localhost:8081
4 threads and 50 connections
Thread Stats Avg Stdev Max +/- Stdev
Latency 98.90ms 97.57ms 786.41ms 95.98%
Req/Sec 55.98 52.61 300.00 83.20%
2099 requests in 10.01s, 37.48MB read
Requests/sec: 209.69
Transfer/sec: 3.74MB
Conclusion⌗
After several tests, I found that the performance of Unit with embedded PHP 8.1 doesn’t seem to differ much from Nginx + PHP 8.1 + PHP-FPM. I’m not sure if this is due to JIT or if Unit with embedded PHP 8.1 with JIT.CLI isn’t effective. One undeniable point is that PHP’s upgrades in recent years have indeed significantly improved performance.
When I have time later, I’ll do tests with Swoole and RoadRunner as well.
I hope this is helpful, Happy hacking…