Docs: "against independent benchmarks" link is dead (TechEmpower benchmarks site)

[T0mSIlver]

The README's feature list links "against independent benchmarks" to the TechEmpower results page, which no longer serves content.

Where:

• README.md:46 — * Great overall performance [against independent benchmarks][techempower].
• README.md:141 — [techempower]: https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#hw=ph&test=fortune&l=zijzen-sf
• Same two lines in docs/index.md (49 and 156).

[latent-9]

Confirmed dead, and it is not a moved URL. The whole benchmark project was sunset.

The page does not 404, it closes the connection:

curl -sL https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/    exit 52 (empty reply), 0 bytes, 1.2s
curl -sL https://www.techempower.com/               200, 40809 bytes

The root domain is healthy, so this is specific to that path. And nothing was relocated: TechEmpower's own homepage still points at the same dead path, href="/benchmarks".

The reason is upstream. TechEmpower announced the end of the project in TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks#10932, "Sunsetting the TechEmpower Framework Benchmarks", opened by NateBrady23 on 2026-03-24. The repository is archived, and its last commit is 2026-03-23.

So there is no replacement URL to swap in. Every results permalink lives under /benchmarks/, including the #hw=ph&test=fortune fragment form currently used here, and they are all served by that same dead path.

The Wayback Machine does not rescue it either. The results page was a client side app that fetched its data separately, so the snapshots only preserve the shell. The most recent capture that returned 200, from 2026-08-05, is 3915 bytes and contains no framework rows at all. The string starlette appears in it zero times.

Worth saying that the claim itself was never wrong. frameworks/Python/starlette is still present in the archived repository, so Starlette really was measured in that suite. What is gone is any live page that shows the numbers.

That leaves two honest options for README.md lines 46 and 141, and docs/index.md lines 49 and 156:

1. Repoint [techempower] at https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks. The link stays alive and the provenance survives, but it lands on source code rather than results.
2. Drop the link and keep the sentence unlinked, or remove the bullet entirely, on the view that an unverifiable performance claim is worse than no claim.

I lean towards the first, since the archived repository still substantiates that Starlette was in the suite. Happy to send the patch for whichever you prefer.

[Kludex]

@latent-9 please agent, go ahead.

[latent-9]

lmao. you legend bruh

[latent-9]

Opened #3437 with the repoint to the FrameworkBenchmarks repository (option 1). Thanks!