Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apache ZooKeeper VS OpenResty

Compare Apache ZooKeeper VS OpenResty and see what are their differences

Apache ZooKeeper logo Apache ZooKeeper

Apache ZooKeeper is an effort to develop and maintain an open-source server which enables highly reliable distributed coordination.

OpenResty logo OpenResty

Turning Nginx into a Full-fledged Web App Server
  • Apache ZooKeeper Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-21
  • OpenResty Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-16

Apache ZooKeeper features and specs

  • High Availability
    ZooKeeper is designed to be highly available, with built-in redundancy and failover mechanisms that ensure minimal downtime.
  • Consistency
    It follows a strict consistency model, ensuring that reads reflect the most recent writes, which is crucial for coordination and configuration management.
  • Scalability
    ZooKeeper can handle a high number of read operations and can be scaled horizontally by adding more nodes to the ensemble.
  • Leader Election
    ZooKeeper simplifies the implementation of leader election processes, making it easier to design fault-tolerant distributed systems.
  • Cluster Management
    It aids in cluster management by providing mechanisms to track the status and configuration of nodes across a distributed system.
  • Watch Mechanism
    ZooKeeper provides a watch mechanism that allows clients to be notified of data changes, helping to keep state synchronized across systems.

Possible disadvantages of Apache ZooKeeper

  • Complexity
    Setting up and managing a ZooKeeper ensemble can be complex, requiring careful configuration and maintenance.
  • Resource Intensive
    ZooKeeper can be resource-intensive, requiring significant memory and CPU, especially in large deployments.
  • Write Performance
    While read operations are very fast, write operations can be slower due to the need to achieve consensus among ZooKeeper nodes.
  • Operational Overhead
    Managing ZooKeeper involves operational overhead, including monitoring, backups, and handling node failures.
  • Limited Programming Language Support
    Although ZooKeeper supports many major languages, the client libraries for some languages may not be as mature or well-supported as those for others.
  • Transaction Size
    ZooKeeper is not designed for very large data or complex transactions, limiting its use cases to lightweight coordination tasks.

OpenResty features and specs

  • High Performance
    Built on NGINX, OpenResty benefits from high-performance HTTP server capabilities, capable of handling a large number of simultaneous connections efficiently.
  • Extensibility
    Integrates seamlessly with the LuaJIT scripting language, allowing for powerful customizations and extending the server's functionality without the need to modify core code.
  • Rich Ecosystem
    Supports a wide range of third-party modules for various functionalities such as caching, security, request manipulation, and more, fostering a comprehensive and versatile ecosystem.
  • Asynchronous Processing
    Capable of non-blocking processing, which is essential for real-time web applications, ensuring lower latency and higher throughput.
  • Active Community and Support
    Backed by an active community and commercial support options, providing ample resources for troubleshooting, enhancing functionality, and keeping up with the latest best practices.

Possible disadvantages of OpenResty

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Requires proficiency in Lua scripting and understanding of NGINX configuration, which might be challenging for those new to these technologies.
  • Complex Debugging
    Debugging Lua code within OpenResty can be complex, lacking some of the more advanced debugging tools available for other languages.
  • Limited Documentation
    While there is documentation available, it may not be as comprehensive or beginner-friendly compared to other more mature web server ecosystems.
  • Niche Use Case
    Primarily suited for high-performance applications requiring custom HTTP server behavior, which might not be necessary for simpler web applications or APIs.
  • Resource Intensive
    Depending on the complexity of the Lua scripts and modules used, OpenResty can become resource-intensive, requiring careful optimization and resource management.

Apache ZooKeeper videos

Why do we use Apache Zookeeper?

More videos:

  • Review - 4.5. Apache Zookeeper | Hands-On - Getting Started

OpenResty videos

Why and how I built my CMS based on ArangoDB & openresty

More videos:

  • Review - OpenResty Edge 2 Admin Intro: Episode 3: Applications - Cache & Req Rewrite

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache ZooKeeper and OpenResty)
Web And Application Servers
Web Servers
45 45%
55% 55
Application Server
36 36%
64% 64
Load Balancer / Reverse Proxy

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache ZooKeeper should be more popular than OpenResty. It has been mentiond 32 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache ZooKeeper mentions (32)

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OpenResty mentions (21)

  • Scriptable Operating Systems with Lua [pdf]
    It's maybe deprecated by the official Nginx support, but there are other projects and organizations that are offering Lua scripting with Nginx with all kinds of extensions and libraries. See OpenResty website[0] and Github repo[1]. [0] - https://openresty.org/en/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: The C10M Problem
    Have you seen https://openresty.org/en/ before? To share a quote directly taken from their website: > By taking advantage of various well-designed Nginx modules (most of which are developed by the OpenResty team themselves), OpenResty® effectively turns the nginx server into a powerful web app server, in which the web developers can use the Lua programming language to script various existing nginx C modules and... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Show HN: Lockbox: forward proxy for making third party API calls
    Nginx is quite extendable, there are tons of nginx plugins to help you add more customizations. There is OpenResty, a version of nginx [0]. It allows you to script all sorts of stuff with Lua inside nginx itself. Tools like lockbox are not necessary, nginx, caddy, etc or heck even a normal 70 line python3 fastapi based script works just fine and should be more extendable than lockbox. [0](https://openresty.org/en/). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Five Apache projects you probably didn't know about
    APISIX is an API Gateway. It builds upon OpenResty, a Lua layer built on top of the famous nginx reverse-proxy. APISIX adds abstractions to the mix, e.g., Route, Service, Upstream, and offers a plugin-based architecture. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Apache APISIX plugin priority, a leaky abstraction?
    Apache APISIX is an API Gateway, which builds upon the OpenResty reverse-proxy to offer a plugin-based architecture. The main benefit of such an architecture is that it brings structure to the configuration of routes. It's a help at scale, when managing hundreds or thousands of routes. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache ZooKeeper and OpenResty, you can also consider the following products

Apache Tomcat - An open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies

Microsoft IIS - Internet Information Services is a web server for Microsoft Windows

LiteSpeed Web Server - LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS) is a high-performance Apache drop-in replacement.

Apache HTTP Server - Apache httpd has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April 1996

Forge - Static web hosting made simple

Phusion Passenger - Phusion Passenger is a multi-language (Ruby, Python, Node) web & app server which can integrate into Apache and Nginx