Execute async concurrent requests

Choosing the right software package to enable a new feature in your code can be hard task. You’re adding a dependency which always comes with risks and trade-offs.

PHP was very late to the party offering an out-of-the-box solution for handling async requests in parallel (also called concurrency). PHP 8.1 was released in november 2021 and offers a new feature called Fibers.

Fibers are primitives for implementing lightweight cooperative concurrency. They are a means of creating code blocks that can be paused and resumed like Generators, but from anywhere in the stack. Fibers themselves don't magically provide concurrency, there still needs to be an event loop. However, they allow blocking and non-blocking implementations to share the same API.
Fibers allow getting rid of the boilerplate code previously seen with Promise::then() or Generator based coroutines. Libraries will generally build further abstractions around Fibers, so there's no need to interact with them directly.
Source: https://www.php.net/releases/8.1/en.php#fibers

Solutions found:

URL	Pros	Cons	Websockets
Guzzle	Uses Guzzle! The most used PHP HTTP client. Only three files for using a middleware solution for handling websocket requests. Relative new and not used by many	Needs 8.2 and does not work with 8.1.	✅
Revolt	Collaboration initiative between AMPHP and ReactPHP	Low-level, Lean, It uses PHP fibers which is new since 8.1 Fast	❌
ReactPHP		Low-level, Feels outdated	✅
AMPHP	Huge adoption for v2	Lack of documentation for v3, v3 is relative new	✅
Open Swoole	Absolutely fast	There is a PECL available, Relative new	✅
spatie/async	Easy to use		❌
PPM	Outdated
FrankenPHP	No async support (yet)
php-wss	Includes a client and server implementation

Considerations while choosing an solution for supporting concurrency requests in Nostr-PHP

Using a low-level package (Revolt, ReactPHP) is better than a framework (Open Swoole, AMPHP)
Fewer dependencies is better, so the codebase stays as small as possible
Writing native PHP async concurrent requests with fibers is something to consider in the future if we’re struggling with the choosen package.
The chosen package should support websockets, so we handle the requests relay requests through a websocket client in Nostr-PHP.

Package	Release	First commit	# contributors	# open issues	# stars	# installs	# dependencies	Date noted
revolt/event-loop	1.0.6	25-07-2021	12	5	786	6.699.383	10	19-08-2024
amphp/amp	3.0.2	04-08-2013	44	15	4.186	69.818.475	13	19-08-2024
react/event-loop	1.0.5	29-04-2012	35	2	1231	59.180.077	4	20-08-2024
openswoole/core	22.1.15	19-12-2021	10	41	344	334.441	71	19-08-2024
valtzu/guzzle-websocket-middleware	0.2.0	09-05-2024	5	1	0	29	1	04-10-2024
php-wss	2.0.5	22-11-2015	4	7	209	720.885	5	04-10-2024

Some insights

AMPHP v3 uses Revolt as a dependency for event loops - source: https://github.com/amphp/amp/issues/428
ReactPHP and AMPHP are similar and both async framework
Revolt seems to be up-to-date and is easier in use
Open Swoole is relative new and also had some drama in the past
For a solid, low-level integration ReactPHP seems to be the right dependency
My expectation the adoption Revolt will increase and is the best option for the future. It’s also much leaner compared to ReactPHP as it’s using the new fibers feature since PHP 8.1. As far as I researched and found, there is no support in the package for websockets (yet). Here we could use https://github.com/ratchetphp/Pawl which is a websocket client supporting concurrency.

Execute async concurrent requests ​

Considerations while choosing an solution for supporting concurrency requests in Nostr-PHP ​

Some insights ​

Other resources ​

Execute async concurrent requests

Considerations while choosing an solution for supporting concurrency requests in Nostr-PHP

Some insights

Other resources