Flex Performance Brief: A Comparison of Flex and Java Server Pages Applications

Macromedia Flex applications provide a richer user experience than traditional web applications with similar or lower server-deployment costs. This study details the server-side performance of a Flex application by comparing it to a similar application implemented in JSP.

PDF Version of the Article

• White Paper: Flex Performance Brief: A Comparison of Flex and Java Server Pages Applications (PDF, 305K)
  

Macromedia determined the server-side performance profiles of the Flex and JSP applications by implementing a shopping-cart application in MXML (the Macromedia Flex Markup Language) and JSP languages. By performing application benchmarks, Macromedia determined the per-transaction resource cost and server CPU load when the shopping-cart application was under a significant user load. The study shows that both applications require similar network bandwidth and server memory, but the Flex application required significantly fewer server CPU cycles. In general, the JSP application creates a server load that is bound directly to the number of user interactions (for example, when a user navigates to a new page or submits data for processing on the server), while the Flex application load is bound to the number of simultaneous users who request the application or submit data requests to the server. The reduced load on the server enabled the Flex server to service an additional 100 users during the one-hour benchmark test.

Flex applications are architected in a fundamentally different way than JSP applications. These differences produce applications that can require fewer server resources and deliver a richer experience than traditional web applications. The following table summarizes the study's primary measurements:

Learn more about Macromedia Flex.

Page 1 of 8

Next Page

About the author