Campfire rewrite wars: C port hits up to 447× Rails throughput, Jai joins the race
msaraivaf · x · 2026-10-20
A benchmark duel has broken out around 37signals' ONCE Campfire, with multiple language rewrites vying for the top spot.
- A greenfield C implementation replaces Ruby, Puma, Redis, Resque and Thruster with a single executable (SQLite, TLS with ALPN/HTTP/2, Action Cable-compatible WebSockets, Active Storage-compatible uploads), benchmarking up to 447× faster than the original Rails app and 1.4–4.4× faster than the Rust port.
- Another developer then added a Jai rewrite claiming 56× over Rails, 3× over Rust, and 1.8× over C.
- The C author compared cached throughput numbers across the shared tables and concluded C still leads by a significant margin on a like-for-like basis.
The posted chart shows median HTTP throughput with 16 concurrent clients — e.g. Room page: Rails 244 req/s, Rust (cache on) 36,033, C (cache on) 143,584 — plus speed-ratio tables, highlighting how much the cache flag swings the C results.