⚡zap⚡ - blazingly fast backends in zig

Zap is intended to become the zig replacement for the kind of REST APIs I used to write in python with Flask and mongodb, etc. It can be considered to be a microframework for web applications.

What I need for that is a blazingly fast, robust HTTP server that I can use with zig. While facil.io supports TLS, I don't care about HTTPS support. In production, I use nginx as a reverse proxy anyway.

Zap wraps and patches facil.io - the C web application framework.

⚡ZAP⚡ IS SUPER ALPHA

Under the hood, everything is super robust and fast. My zig wrappers are fresh, juicy, and alpha.

Here's what works:

• Super easy build process: zap's build.zig fetches git sub-modules, applies a patch to facil.io's logging for microsecond precision, builds and optionally runs everything.
  • tested on Linux and macOS (arm, M1)
• hello: welcomes you with some static HTML
• routes: a super easy example dispatching on the HTTP path
• serve: the traditional static web server with optional dynamic request handling
• hello_json: serves you json dependent on HTTP path
• endpoint: a simple JSON REST API example featuring a /users endpoint for PUTting/DELETE-ing/GET-ting/POST-ing and listing users, together with a static HTML and JavaScript frontend to play with.

I'll continue wrapping more of facil.io's functionality and adding stuff to zap to a point where I can use it as the JSON REST API backend for real research projects, serving thousands of concurrent clients.

⚡blazingly fast⚡

Claiming to be blazingly fast is the new black. At least, zap doesn't slow you down and if your server performs poorly, it's probably not exactly zap's fault. Zap relies on the facil.io framework and so it can't really claim any performance fame for itself. In this initial implementation of zap, I didn't care about optimizations at all.

But, how fast is it? Being blazingly fast is relative. When compared with a simple GO HTTP server, a simple zig zap HTTP server performed really good on my machine:

• zig zap was nearly 30% faster than GO
• zig zap had over 50% more throughput than GO

Update: I was intrigued comparing to a basic rust HTTP server. Unfortunately, knowing nothing at all about rust, I couldn't find one and hence tried to go for the one in The Rust Programming Language. Wanting it to be of a somewhat fair comparison, I opted for the multi-threaded example. It didn't work out-of-the-box, but I got it to work and changed it to not read files but outputting a static text just like in the other examples. maybe someone with rust experience can have a look at my wrk/rust/hello code and tell me why it's surprisingly slow, as I expected it to be faster than the basic GO example. I'll enable the GitHub discussions for this matter. My suspicion is bad performance of the mutexes.

So, being somewhere in the ballpark of basic GO performance, zig zap seems to be ... of reasonable performance 😎.

See more details in blazingly-fast.md.

Getting started

$ git clone https://github.com/renerocksai/zap.git
$ cd zap 
$ zig build run-hello
$ # open http://localhost:3000 in your browser

... and open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Using ⚡zap⚡ in your own projects

If you don't have an existing zig project, create one like this:

$ mkdir zaptest && cd zaptest
$ zig init-exe
$ git init 

With an existing zig project, adding zap to it is easy:

1. Add zap as a git submodule
2. Add zap to your build.zig

To add zap as a git submodule:

$ mkdir libs
$ git submodule add https://github.com/renerocksai/zap.git libs/zap

Then, add the following at the top of your build.zig:

const zap_builder = @import("./libs/zap/build.zig");

const zap = std.build.Pkg{
    .name = "zap",
    .source = std.build.FileSource{ .path = "./libs/zap/src/zap.zig" },
};

In the build function, add the following before exe.install():

    exe.addPackage(zap);
    zap_builder.addZap(exe, "./libs/zap/") catch unreachable;

From then on, you can use the zap package in your project. Check out the examples to see how to use zap.

Contribute to ⚡zap⚡ - blazingly fast

At the current time, I can only add to zap what I need for my personal and professional projects. While this happens blazingly fast, some if not all nice-to-have additions will have to wait. You are very welcome to help make the world a blazingly fast place by providing patches or pull requests, add documentation or examples, or interesting issues and bug reports - you'll know what to do when you receive your calling 👼.

Check out CONTRIBUTING.md for more details.

See also introducing.md for more on the state and progress of this project.

You can also reach me on the zig showtime discord server under the handle renerocksai (renerocksai#1894).

Support ⚡zap⚡

Being blazingly fast requires a constant feed of caffeine. I usually manage to provide that to myself for myself. However, to support keeping the juices flowing and putting a smile on my face and that warm and cozy feeling into my heart, you can always buy me a coffee ☕. All donations are welcomed 🙏 blazingly fast! That being said, just saying "hi" also works wonders with the smiles, warmth, and coziness 😊.

Examples

You build and run the examples via:

$ zig build [EXAMPLE]
$ ./zig-out/bin/[EXAMPLE]

... where [EXAMPLE] is one of hello, routes, or serve.

Example: building and running the hello example:

$ zig build hello 
$ ./zig-out/bin/hello

To just run an example, like routes, without generating an executable, run:

$ zig build run-[EXAMPLE]

Example: building and running the routes example:

$ zig build run-routes

hello

const std = @import("std");
const zap = @import("zap");

fn on_request(r: zap.SimpleRequest) void {
    if (r.path) |the_path| {
        std.debug.print("PATH: {s}\n", .{the_path});
    }

    if (r.query) |the_query| {
        std.debug.print("QUERY: {s}\n", .{the_query});
    }
    _ = r.sendBody("<html><body><h1>Hello from ZAP!!!</h1></body></html>");
}

pub fn main() !void {
    var listener = zap.SimpleHttpListener.init(.{
        .port = 3000,
        .on_request = on_request,
        .log = false,
    });
    try listener.listen();

    std.debug.print("Listening on 0.0.0.0:3000\n", .{});

    // start worker threads
    zap.start(.{
        .threads = 2,
        .workers = 2,
    });
}