On Performance: Is EMPS Fast?

Yes, it is quite fast, in addition to its versatility.

Here's a small performance test rig that I created as a set of Docker containers that can demonstrate this.

Web Framework Perfomance Test Rig →

It's doing exactly what most people wish existed: a practical, apples-to-apples benchmark of real web frameworks under stress.

It covers the most popular server-side web app frameworks: Laravel, Lumen, Slim, WordPress, and also tests a plain PHP file for contrast.

The Results

Test run

July 2025. I ran the test locally in Docker. My PC is an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6-Core Processor at 4.70 GHz with 64GB RAM.

The settings were as set in this GitHub repository (read Dockerfiles).

The duration of the test was 130 seconds with a 10-second warm-up.

The job each test subject did

Handling incoming HTTP requests with a $_GET parameter ($_GET['number']), getting the md5 of it and die()-ing showing that md5 string. The test script checks if the expected md5 matches the actual md5, and counts that as a success.

Top-Performing Web Frameworks

Of course, the top of the list is Plain PHP, because the best framework is no framework.

Framework Successes Failures Response time (mode*)
Plain PHP 1012 0 2
EMPS (fast controller) 884 0 18
Lumen** 837 0 8
EMPS (regular) 779 0 33
Slim 441 0 120
Laravel 254 5*** 76
Wordpress**** 239 0 281

* mode means the most frequent response time

** Lumen actually outperformed EMPS (fast), but it had some awful sudden drops in performance for some reason. It performed much better when there was no setting for pm.max_requests in php-fpm. Lumen certainly performs better if the php-fpm worker never dies/restarts.

*** Laravel is notorious for refusing to respond to requests when a certain cap in the number of requests from a host is reached. That HTTP request throttling is enabled from the box, I didn't turn it off.

**** yes, this isn't really a web application framework, but it's included here for dramatic effect.

Plain PHP

  • URL: http://emps.test/plain.php
  • Total Requests: 1112
  • Successes: 1012
  • Failures: 0

Response Time Statistics (ms)

  • Average: 5.58
  • Median: 2
  • Mode: 2
  • Standard Deviation: 19.23
  • 90th Percentile: 5
  • 99th Percentile: 72

Response Time Strata

Percentile Range Min Max Avg
0-10% 0 1 0.99
10-20% 1 2 1.04
20-30% 2 2 2.00
30-40% 2 2 2.00
40-50% 2 2 2.00
50-60% 2 2 2.00
60-70% 2 3 2.66
70-80% 3 3 3.00
80-90% 3 5 3.64
90-100% 5 202 31.44

Surely, if the best part is no part, then the best framework is no framework. At least performance-wise.

EMPS (fast controller)

  • URL: http://emps.test/test/
  • Total Requests: 973
  • Successes: 884
  • Failures: 0

Response Time Statistics (ms)

  • Average: 22.28
  • Median: 18
  • Mode: 18
  • Standard Deviation: 46.36
  • 90th Percentile: 23
  • 99th Percentile: 134

Response Time Strata

Percentile Range Min Max Avg
0-10% 10 15 13.26
10-20% 15 16 15.31
20-30% 16 17 16.19
30-40% 17 17 17.00
40-50% 17 18 17.92
50-60% 18 19 18.55
60-70% 19 20 19.44
70-80% 20 21 20.51
80-90% 21 23 22.08
90-100% 23 170 40.48

EMPS6 in "fast" mode. It means that the test controller is included into the EMPS_FAST list, meaning that EMPS skips some unneeded initializations if the request URI starts with /test/.

EMPS (regular)

  • URL: http://emps.test/test-slow/
  • Total Requests: 856
  • Successes: 779
  • Failures: 0

Response Time Statistics (ms)

  • Average: 41.56
  • Median: 35
  • Mode: 33
  • Standard Deviation: 85.87
  • 90th Percentile: 43
  • 99th Percentile: 165

Response Time Strata

Percentile Range Min Max Avg
0-10% 25 30 28.13
10-20% 30 31 30.65
20-30% 31 33 32.23
30-40% 33 34 33.19
40-50% 34 35 34.21
50-60% 35 36 35.40
60-70% 36 38 36.70
70-80% 38 40 38.60
80-90% 40 42 40.81
90-100% 42 120 49.53

Regular EMPS6 with no optimizations or skipped initializations.

Laravel

  • URL: http://laravel.test/test/
  • Total Requests: 287
  • Successes: 254
  • Failures: 5

Response Time Statistics (ms)

  • Average: 352.03
  • Median: 76
  • Mode: 76
  • Standard Deviation: 760.87
  • 90th Percentile: 1615
  • 99th Percentile: 4729

Response Time Strata

Percentile Range Min Max Avg
0-10% 35 63 46.60
10-20% 64 69 67.04
20-30% 69 71 69.84
30-40% 71 74 73.08
40-50% 74 76 75.36
50-60% 76 79 77.60
60-70% 79 83 80.80
70-80% 83 90 86.00
80-90% 91 1599 588.00
90-100% 1601 1796 1666.68

Just a regular Laravel setup out of the box.

Lumen

  • URL: http://lumen.test/test/
  • Total Requests: 923
  • Successes: 837
  • Failures: 0

Response Time Statistics (ms)

  • Average: 32.93
  • Median: 9
  • Mode: 8
  • Standard Deviation: 155.96
  • 90th Percentile: 13
  • 99th Percentile: 419

Response Time Strata

Percentile Range Min Max Avg
0-10% 4 6 5.61
10-20% 6 8 7.14
20-30% 8 8 8.00
30-40% 8 9 8.12
40-50% 9 9 9.00
50-60% 9 10 9.10
60-70% 10 10 10.00
70-80% 10 11 10.19
80-90% 11 12 11.23
90-100% 13 428 164.41

Just a regular Lumen setup out of the box. This is really fast, it mostly outperformed EMPS in fast mode. But Lumen is only good for HTTP APIs and microservices, you wouldn't be able to create a meaningful website or a web app with it. Besides that, the authors are currently recommending to avoid using Lumen for new projects.

Slim

  • URL: http://slim.test/test/
  • Total Requests: 488
  • Successes: 441
  • Failures: 0

Response Time Statistics (ms)

  • Average: 157.92
  • Median: 117
  • Mode: 120
  • Standard Deviation: 213.30
  • 90th Percentile: 145
  • 99th Percentile: 488

Response Time Strata

Percentile Range Min Max Avg
0-10% 92 104 100.34
10-20% 104 108 106.59
20-30% 108 111 109.77
30-40% 111 114 112.52
40-50% 114 117 115.41
50-60% 117 120 118.34
60-70% 120 122 120.82
70-80% 122 128 124.34
80-90% 128 145 134.64
90-100% 145 1543 457.36

This is a real discouragement, a framework named "Slim" that is supposed to be slim, is ahead of only Wordpress.

Wordpress

  • URL: http://wordpress.test/test/
  • Total Requests: 263
  • Successes: 239
  • Failures: 0

Response Time Statistics (ms)

  • Average: 395.40
  • Median: 284
  • Mode: 281
  • Standard Deviation: 448.05
  • 90th Percentile: 689
  • 99th Percentile: 3432

Response Time Strata

Percentile Range Min Max Avg
0-10% 111 260 185.00
10-20% 260 267 263.30
20-30% 268 275 271.17
30-40% 275 280 276.87
40-50% 280 282 281.13
50-60% 282 287 285.04
60-70% 289 298 293.30
70-80% 299 326 311.39
80-90% 327 664 437.70
90-100% 669 760 708.26

This is expected. On every request, this CMS reads its InnoDB database to check dozens of settings, plugins, themes, etc. This really takes some time, even for the simplest of requests.