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Analysis
Roadrunner

RoadRunner

  • Language: Go
  • Architecture: Go process manages a pool of long-lived PHP worker processes. Communication via Goridge binary protocol (pipes/TCP/Unix sockets).
  • Creator: Spiral Scout / Temporal Technologies
  • Maturity: Very high. In production since 2018. Most battle-tested Go-based PHP server. Latest: v2025.1.8 (Feb 2026).
  • License: MIT

How It Works

  • Maintains a pool of persistent PHP workers. Go handles HTTP, protocol parsing, load balancing, and plugin services. Workers communicate via Goridge (~300k calls/sec over pipes).
  • Plugin architecture makes it a platform, not just a server.

Features

  • HTTP/1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, gRPC, FastCGI via plugins
  • ACME/Let’s Encrypt support (since v2.5), auto-renewal
  • Prometheus metrics plugin, OpenTelemetry support (gRPC, HTTP, Jaeger)
  • KV plugin with drivers: in-memory, BoltDB, Redis, Memcached (single-node only)
  • Job queues: RabbitMQ, Kafka, SQS, Beanstalk, NATS, in-memory
  • gRPC server built-in
  • Temporal workflow engine integration
  • Distributed lock plugin
  • Auto worker scaling (up to 100 extra workers, added v2024.3)

Does NOT Have

  • Database connection pooling (requested since 2021, never built)
  • Multi-node clustering for KV store
  • Debug/profiling UI
  • Query analysis tools

PHP-Side Requirements

  • Requires Composer packages: spiral/roadrunner-http, spiral/roadrunner-worker, spiral/goridge (transitive), and a PSR-17 implementation (e.g., nyholm/psr7)
  • Entry point must be rewritten as a while(true) loop with PSR-7 request/response
  • Superglobals do NOT work ($_GET, $_POST, $_SERVER not populated)
  • session_start() does not work
  • App must be 100% PSR-7 driven

Worker example:

$worker  = Worker::create();
$factory = new Psr17Factory();
$psr7    = new PSR7Worker($worker, $factory, $factory, $factory);

while ($request = $psr7->waitRequest()) {
    $response = $app->handle($request); // must return PSR-7 ResponseInterface
    $psr7->respond($response);
}
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