CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsnode.jswebserverapplication-server
Fabio Papa
Fabio Papa

Reputation: 15

Would it make sense to make a web server/app server for Rails in NodeJS

OK, NodeJS is all the buzz these days because it handles things in a non-blocking asynchronous way. Because of this, it is very well suited to being a server of some sort, handling requests from multiple clients concurrently. So my question is whether it would make sense, from a technical perspective, to write a general-purpose Rails app AND web server for production use. To be clear, it would take the place of (for example) Apache and Phusion Passenger. Would this setup, in theory, not be faster at handling requests and responding?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 371

Answers (2)

EhevuTov
EhevuTov

Reputation: 20463

You could use Nginx, Lighttpd or Mongrel2 that are event based and probably still keep your Ruby on Rails. To my knowledge, all three of those use event I/O and don't build and tear down threads or forks on each new connection. This way, you can keep your Ruby on Rails. If you need bidirectional communication for any AJAX, then I'd suggest putting in a Node.JS Socket.IO server.

Upvotes: 2

blockchaindev
blockchaindev

Reputation: 3196

Apache is very inefficient at handling concurrent connections. If you have a high volume traffic scenario then node should do a better job than Apache at handling the connections. However, node itself is much more than just a http server, it is possible to write brand new MVC frameworks not unlike Rails for building web applications. It is perhaps not wise to write a http server in node to replace Apache / Phusion Passenger just yet. Node is young and has not yet released version 1.0.

Upvotes: 0

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