Unicorn (web server)
Original author(s) | Eric Wong |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Unicorn developers |
Initial release | March 11, 2009 |
Stable release |
5.4.0
/ December 23, 2017 |
Written in | Ruby |
Operating system | Cross-platform |
Available in | English |
Type | Web server |
License | GPLv2+ |
Website |
bogomips |
Unicorn is a Rack HTTP server to serve Ruby web applications on UNIX environment. It is optimised to be used with nginx. It is based on Mongrel 1.1.5.
Architecture
Unicorn uses a master/worker architecture, where a master process forks to worker processes and control them. The application runs in a single thread.[1]
Reception and use
Unicorn was considered as “one of the most popular servers for Rails”.[2][1]
Twitter starts to test Unicorn in 2010.[3]
This server is shipped with Discourse. Their system administration expert Sam Saffron noted Unicorn was reliable, as it reaps unresponsive workers.[4] GitLab also uses Unicorn.[5]
Unicorn inspired other projects like Gunicorn, a fork to run Python applications.
As of 2018, projects tend to favour Puma . The Heroku hosting provider recommends since 2015 to migrate from Unicorn to Puma.[6]. Deliveroo published a benchmark comparing the two servers and concluded “Puma performs better than Unicorn in all tests that were either heavily IO-bound or that interleaved IO and CPU work”, but than Unicorn was still slightly better performing in pure CPU situations.[7]
References
- 1 2 Fulton, Hal; Arko, André (11 February 2015). The Ruby Way: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming. Addison-Wesley Professional. p. 566. ISBN 978-0321714633.
- ↑ Bylina, H.N. (2014). Ruby Programming Language. Ruby on Rails framework (PDF). XX International conference for students and young scientists «MODERN TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGIES». Tomsk: IOP Publishing.
- ↑ "Unicorn Power". 30 March 2010.
- ↑ "Why did you move to runit + Unicorn". February 2015.
- ↑ "How GitLab uses Unicorn and unicorn-worker-killer". GitLab. 5 June 2015. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
- ↑ "Puma is Now the Recommended Ruby Webserver". 23 January 2015.
- ↑ Pavese, Tommaso (21 December 2016). "Unicorn vs Puma: Rails server benchmarks".