Opera Unite Web Server Benchmarked

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."

Comments

Misleading, again

[SteelRealm]

Opera's Unite is not meant to refine the web as a hosting solution in the traditional sense, but as a way to make your files accessible to yourself and others through it. I don't think anyone is questioning whether it is a better hosting solution then a dedicated server. It's also worth it to note that Unite is a Alpha release with lots of bugs to be fixed and performance tuning and optimization to be done.

Re:Misleading, again

[bunratty]

...a way to make your files accessible to yourself and others through it.

Can you say "huge honking security hole"?

Re:Misleading, again

[patro]

...a way to make your files accessible to yourself and others through it.

Can you say "huge honking security hole"?

Every server is a security hole waiting to be fixed.

Re:Misleading, again

[pbhj]

...a way to make your files accessible to yourself and others through it.

Can you say "huge honking security hole"?

Every server is a security hole waiting to be fixed.

Ultimate security = bolt cutters.

Re:Misleading, again

[jc42]

...a way to make your files accessible to yourself and others through it.

Can you say "huge honking security hole"?

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 it to get at files outside the server's directory.

Do you really think that outside access to files that I want made public is a security hole? That's what it sounds like people are saying.

Maybe I'm misreading something here, but so far I haven't read anything about Unite that qualifies as a security hole. I wouldn't be surprised if there were one, but it'd be nice to read some details. Calling "make your files accessible to others" a security hole is nonsense, when the tool was designed and described as doing exactly that.

Next we're going to hear email software described as a security hole because it allows others to read messages that you send to them. ;-)

Re:Misleading, again

[PitaBred]

And hopefully it'll encourage ISP's to keep their pipes open both ways, instead of treating subscribers as download-only nodes

Disturbing trend

[nausea_malvarma]

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'm starting to have hope for the future now. HMTL 5 will reduce the need for proprietary plugins, for sure. This Opera web server thing could work towards decentralizing the web as well. Sure, anybody can set up a web server to host their own content in theory, but its too difficult for average folks to do. With this technology, perhaps more people will sidestep commercial options, and host web pages on their own - meaning less reliance on geocities, google sites, ect. And thats good. It's not healthy for a few companies to have that sort of control over a medium.

Re:Disturbing trend

[Abcd1234]

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...

Re:Disturbing trend

[Eil]

Sure, anybody can set up a web server to host their own content in theory, but its too difficult for average folks to do. With this technology, perhaps more people will sidestep commercial options, and host web pages on their own - meaning less reliance on geocities, google sites, ect. And thats good. It's not healthy for a few companies to have that sort of control over

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 things if they found a server running (automatically update the customer to a more expensive plan, send warnings, terminate service) even if the "server" was serving no content or if a different application was listening on the port. Do companies still do this anymore?

Way back when I first learned about how TCP/IP worked, I knew that content corporations would always try to somehow override or make irrelevant the fact that the Internet is just a big network of peers rather than a "we only sell, you only buy" arrangement. It's the center issue of the whole net neutrality thing. It's just nice to see some companies at least trying to put more control back into the hands of the user.

Re:Disturbing trend

[nausea_malvarma]

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.

Re:Disturbing trend

[Psychotria]

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:Disturbing trend

[FishWithAHammer]

And without a domain name, who's going to do that? In any case, NAT (which basically everyone has or should have!) makes this silly and meaningless. Anybody savvy enough--and with an ISP terms-of-use agreement liberal enough--to set up Opera Unite as their web server on a private account can probably set up a real web server running Wordpress or whatever.

Or just spend $5/month for shared hosting and do it that way.

Re:Disturbing trend

[amicusNYCL]

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.

It's a toy...

[jo42]

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...

[SteelRealm]

It's not meant to act as a serious server, just to allow easy access to files and content made avaible to Opera on the user's computer. They said it's unlikely PHP and MySQL will be added, but the possiblity that they might do it is there in the future. It's a toy to attract users and to maintain those who may consider leaving the browser, and it's doing just that. Anyone who wants to share content with friends/family can easily do it, and it's incredibly handy for people who use multiple computers.

Re:Still an Epic Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

...and leave all your data on someone else's server, which is exactly what Unite allows you NOT to do. Why would I pay for web hosting or let Facebook hold my data hostage when I can distribute whatever I want, including any size pictures (have you seen the size of Facebook photos?) to whomever I want using Unite?

Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi

[worb]

And yet it's still smaller than the so-called "pure browsers" ;)

Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi

[SteelRealm]

You realize it is still smaller download then Firefox and has a smaller memory footprint then all other browsers, right?

Stupid benchmark

[royallthefourth]

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:Stupid benchmark

[tyrione]

Java? Ruby? Python? ObjC? Do I need to go on to include the massive depth and breath that Apache 2 covers to even make this remotely worth comparing?

Re:Still an Epic Fail

[rs79]

"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.

Re:Still an Epic Fail

[AmigaHeretic]

>>If you don't trust it on a remote host, it probably shouldn't be web accessible.

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.

Re:I feel vindicated to some extent

[chdig]

Opera's web server has a completely different target market than apache, and is so completely different that to compare Opera to Apache is like comparing benchmarks of serving static content to that which comes from a database -- yes, another silly comparison that TFA for some unknown reason actually makes. Apples ain't oranges!

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, apache is. Apache can do almost anything any web developer can dream of. Unite is one dimensional.

As for your configuration "argument", are you still trying to install Apache from source or something? a WAMP install will put apache/mysql/php on your computer in a minute or two. Toss a blog app into the web folder, use a browser to enter its connection settings, and voila! you've got yourself a basic, but dynamic blog online in minutes, just for one example.

But besides using it for web development, running a website with PHP/any dynamic language off your home desktop would be exposing yourself to some serious risks, which is again yet another reason that a Unite/Apache+PHP comparison is completely senseless.

What is truly wrong is that TFA and its "benchmarks" made it onto /., where most of us actually know that dynamic!=static content. A far better, and insightful article on Unite was written by this guy: http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/06/16/thoughts-on-opera-unite/

--
The Opera fanboys are out tonight, and with mod points to spare. Hmm, it's not even a full moon.

What is this juvenile fascination with speed?

[presidenteloco]

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?"

Re:What is this juvenile fascination with speed?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We developed this new console that's so easy to use. you just point this remote at the screen, anybody from young to old can just pick up and play."

"Yeah, but how fast is it?"

"You don't understand, this is totally changing the future of games consoles, from now on everything is going to be motion controlled. Its never going to be the same again!"

"Yeah, but how fast is it?"

I Call Shenanigans

[mpapet]

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.

The real speed test...

[bgspence]

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.

Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi

[shentino]

My priority for any browser is standards compliance.

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.

Yeah, right . . .

[siloko]

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!

Re:Yeah, right . . .

[d3ac0n]

Actually, despite the ad hominem-ness of the post, his point stands: the "real world" still very much uses, and expects you to use, e-mail.

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.

Re:So Opera web browser now runs as a system servi

[shutdown -p now]

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:Still an Epic Fail

[keefus_a]

Add to that, Opera's biggest install base is mobile devices. When your desktop and your laptop/PDA/Wii and the rest of the laundry list of devices that run (or are at least capable of running) Opera are suddenly connected and your data is freely accessible wherever you may roam...that's a game changer...as long as your "server" is powered on and connected.

I have to agree with the parent. In my mind, the biggest benefit is the ability to share information with myself, not everybody else. It just so happens that sharing/exchanging/communicating with others is one and the same.