Loggly - Benchmarking 5 Node.js Logging Libraries

16/28/17© 2017 Loggly Inc. Confidential and ProprietaryMORE DETAILS ON OUR BLOG:
A Benchmark of
Five Node.js
Logging Libraries
Presented by:

Introduction to our benchmark
We compared performance and reliability among three popular
debug logging libraries. It also compares performance between
two popular Express request logging libraries.
Measure the time required to log a large number of
messages and compare the reliability of these libraries by
recording message drop rates.
GOAL
loggly.com/node-js-benchmark/

Libraries tested
HTTP request logging with Express
• Express-Winston
• Morgan
The following libraries were tested:
Debug-level logging
• Bunyan
• Log4js
• Winston

Setup and configuration:
Test structure
DEBUG Logging Request Logging
Syslog (UDP and TCP) 100,000 DEBUG logs over
10 iterations
100,000 requests over
10 iterations, maximum
500 concurrent connections
File transport 10,000 DEBUG logs over
100 iterations
—
For the debug-level logging
tests, a list of prime numbers
was being generated in the
background to simulate a
workload.
For the request logging tests,
an Express app was created
that returned the plain text
“Hello World” when requested.
The benchmark results were
found using ApacheBench.

Bunyan:
• Fastest of the three
• Ran 26% faster than Log4js,
34% faster than Winston
• Drop rate:
0% for all three libraries
Debug logging test results
File transport
Each library produced similar
results.
Log4jsBunyan Winston
Time(ms)
282
381
426
460
0
100
200
300
400
Drop
Rate 0% Drop
Rate 0% Drop
Rate 0%

Syslog transport: TCP
• Log4js is the fastest library
for the TCP protocol.
• Tradeoff: <1% packet drop
• Bunyan was the fastest
library with a 0% drop rate
• Winston had the highest
average time and the amount
of fluctuation between tests
Log4jsBunyan Winston
Time(ms)
12,210
9,022
11,392
1200
0
200
400
800
1000
600
1400
Drop
Rate 0% Drop
Rate <1% Drop
Rate 0%

UDP
For the UDP tests, the libraries
proved to have striking differences
in both efficiency and reliability
Log4js:
• Fastest library —
smallest drop rate
• 36% faster than Bunyan,
71% faster than Winston
• Drop rate:
16% less than Bunyan,
25% less than Winston Log4jsBunyan Winston
Time(ms)
4,769
3,537
10,537
1200
0
200
400
800
1000
600
Drop
Rate 43% Drop
Rate 27%
Drop
Rate 52%

A note on drop rates
• Since the system was being pushed to its limits for testing purposes,
the syslog drop rates seen below are greater than you should ever
experience in a real-world application
• Requests sent to a real-world application are normally spread out over
time, which allows the system to catch up

HTTP request logging test results
Syslog transport: TCP
Morgan processed each request 56% faster than Winston, which suggests that
it would be the ideal request logging library in a real-world application.
Average time required to process each individual requestAverage total request time per iteration of 100,000 requests
Morgan Winston
Time(ms)
47,360
91,628
100,000
0
20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
Drop
Rate 0% Drop
Rate 0%
Morgan Winston
Time(ms)
108
243
300
0
100
150
200
250
50 Drop
Rate 0%Drop
Rate 0%

HTTP request logging test results
Syslog transport: UDP
As with TCP, Morgan runs more efficiently timewise compared to Winston.
Average time required to process each individual requestAverage total request time per iteration of 100,000 requests
Drop
Rate <1%Drop
Rate <1%
Morgan Winston
Time(ms)
50,002
62,37564,000
44,000
48,000
52,000
56,000
60,000
Morgan Winston
Time(ms)
129
163
200
0
100
125
150
175
50
75
Drop
Rate <1%Drop
Rate <1%

Conclusion
• With Node.js logging libraries, tradeoff between efficiency and
reliability is not always significant
• When outputting debug logs to a file, the most efficient library timewise
is Bunyan
• When using the syslog protocol, Log4js is the fastest of the three
libraries for both TCP and UDP.
• May choose to use Bunyan over Log4js for TCP since Bunyan had 0%
drop rate
• For request logging, Morgan always supersedes Winston for efficiency

Sending Node.js log data to Loggly
• When sending Node.js logs to Loggly, we recommend the winston-
loggly-bulk library
• Loggly focused on Winston due to its popularity and high ratings from
developers
See the documentation here.

About the author
Lukas Rossi is an experienced front- and back-end web designer
and developer who has developed numerous mobile applications
and websites. Lukas discovered an interest in web development
during high school, and since then he hasn't stopped learning the
latest technologies. He is the manager of App Dimensions
[appdimensions.com], a company that creates mobile apps to
improve everyday life. In his free time, Lukas enjoys bike riding and
various other outdoor activities.

Appendix

Additional details on test structure
Syslog (UDP and TCP) File
DEBUG Logging 100,000 DEBUG logs over
10 iterations
10,000 DEBUG logs over
100 iterations
Request Logging 100,000 requests over
10 iterations, maximum
500 concurrent connections
—
The following libraries were tested:
All of the libraries were tested and compared using syslog UDP and TCP (rsyslog was used in
the tests), as well as file transports for the debug-level logging tests. Benchmarking with the file
transport contained more iterations (with less runs per iteration) to eliminate overload. For each
specific test, a total of 1 million log events was logged. Each specific test was run three times,
and the results were then averaged. Log data was sent to a local server; therefore, the tests are
not affected by network lag.
For the debug-level logging tests, a list of prime numbers was being generated in the
background to simulate a workload.
For the request logging tests, an Express app was created that returned the plain text “Hello
World” when requested. The benchmark results were found using ApacheBench.

Server hardware
All of the tests were performed on a
server with burstable high
frequency Intel Xeon processors
and 4GiB of RAM. The Node.js
processes, rsyslog, and
ApacheBench were all running on
this server, so there was no
network latency affecting the tests.
All of the libraries were tested and compared
using syslog UDP and TCP (rsyslog was used in
the tests), as well as file transports for the
debug-level logging tests. Benchmarking with
the file transport contained more iterations (with
less runs per iteration) to eliminate overload. For
each specific test, a total of 1 million log events
was logged. Each specific test was run three
times, and the results were then averaged. Log
data was sent to a local server; therefore, the
tests are not affected by network lag.

Logging format and library configuration
The standard logging format for each specific library was used for the tests. The configuration for each library
was kept as close to default as possible, so keep in mind that customizing the configuration to suit your
specific application may improve each library’s performance.
Many of the libraries used require additional code in order to log with syslog.
The following libraries were added:
“Winston-syslog” (https://github.com/winstonjs/winston-syslog) for debug-level syslog logging with Winston
“Winston-rsyslog2” (https://github.com/imsky/winston-rsyslog2) for request logging with syslog with Winston
“Log4js-tcp” (https://github.com/tianyk/log4js-tcp) for TCP logging with Log4js
“Node-bunyan-syslog” (https://github.com/mcavage/node-bunyan-syslog) for syslog logging with Bunyan
“Node-syslog” (https://github.com/cloudhead/node-syslog) for TCP logging with Morgan
“Node-syslogudp” (https://www.npmjs.com/package/syslogudp) for UDP logging with Morgan

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Loggly - Benchmarking 5 Node.js Logging Libraries

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