Comparing Languages for Engineering Server Software: Erlang, Go, and Scala with Akka

Valkov, I., Chechina, N. and Trinder, P. (2018) Comparing Languages for Engineering Server Software: Erlang, Go, and Scala with Akka. In: 33rd ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2018), Pau, France, 09-13 Apr 2018, pp. 218-225. ISBN 9781450351911 (doi: 10.1145/3167132.3167144)

Abstract

Servers are a key element of current IT infrastructures, and must often deal with large numbers of concurrent requests. The programming language used to construct the server has an important role in engineering efficient server software, and must support massive concurrency on multicore machines with low communication and synchronisation overheads. This paper investigates 12 highly concurrent programming languages suitable for engineering servers, and analyses three representative languages in detail: Erlang, Go, and Scala with Akka. We have designed three server benchmarks that analyse key performance characteristics of the languages. The benchmark results suggest that where minimising message latency is crucial, Go and Erlang are best; that Scala with Akka is capable of supporting the largest number of dormant processes; that for servers that frequently spawn processes Erlang and Go minimise creation time; and that for constantly communicating processes Go provides the best throughput.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Valkov, Mr Ivan and Chechina, Dr Natalia and Trinder, Professor Phil
• Authors: Valkov, I., Chechina, N., and Trinder, P.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• ISBN: 9781450351911
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2018 The Authors
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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