.NET 9 Performance Improvements: A Summary

This briefing document summarizes the key performance enhancements introduced in .NET 9, based on the article ".NET 9 Performance Improvements Summary" by Alper E. published on the ABP.IO Articles.

Overall Impact: .NET 9 delivers significant speed and efficiency boosts, primarily benefiting cloud-native and high-throughput applications. Notably, 20% of these improvements were contributed by open-source volunteers.

Key Areas of Improvement:

1- Dynamic PGO with JIT Compiler:

• Dynamic Profile Guided Optimization (PGO) enables the compiler to optimize code based on actual execution flow.

• Results: ~15% faster startup times and reduced CPU utilization.
• Developer Impact: Faster deployments and reduced latency, especially for complex applications.
• Activation: Add <TieredPGO>true</TieredPGO> to your project file.

2- Library Improvements:

• Enhancements to LINQ, JSON serialization, collections, and other libraries.
• Results:~35% increase in JSON serialization performance.
• Reduced memory allocation for Span operations.
• Faster execution of LINQ methods like Where and Select.
• Developer Impact: Faster data processing, particularly for applications heavily reliant on JSON or LINQ.

3- ASP.NET Core Optimizations:

• Significant improvements to the Kestrel server, particularly in HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 protocol handling.
• Results: Request handling by Kestrel is up to 20% faster.
• 25% reduction in average latency.
• Gains in efficiency due to improved connection management and SSL processing.
• Developer Impact: Reduced resource consumption, faster response times, and smoother scaling for web applications, especially under high traffic.

4- Garbage Collection & Memory Management:

• More efficient garbage collection (GC) in .NET 9.
• Results: Smoother GC cycles.
• 8-12% less memory overhead.
• Developer Impact: Reduced latency and delays, leading to more predictable and reliable performance, particularly for applications with frequent object allocations.

5- Native AOT Compilation Enhancements:

• Improved Native Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation.
• Results: Reduced memory footprint.
• Faster cold-start times.
• 30-40% less memory usage for Native AOT applications.
• Developer Impact: Significantly benefits containerized applications with faster startup and reduced resource consumption.

Conclusion:

.NET 9 significantly enhances performance across various areas, resulting in faster, more efficient, and more reliable applications, particularly for cloud-native and high-throughput scenarios. Developers can leverage these improvements by simply updating their projects to .NET 9.

Source:

Ebiçoğlu, Alper. ".NET 9 Performance Improvements Summary." ABP.IO Articles, 9 Oct. 2024.