Commercial product comparison · Updated 2026-07-26
Grayworth recommendation
Choose Gray when you want PHP-like directness on a persistent native server platform. Live and Adaptive execution preserve the fast development loop while Gray's reactor and cooperative PostgreSQL path replace the request-process ceiling. In the published fixture, Gray's highest qualifying rate was 7.5 times PHP-FPM's on both routes.1
01 / At a glance
Live execution plus Adaptive last-valid worker replacement.
Edit-refresh workflow with mature framework and FPM deployment practices.
Persistent reactor workers and cooperative suspended handlers.
FPM worker pools with a configurable simultaneous-request ceiling.
Integrated commercial server platform and growing package tooling.
Composer, frameworks, CMS platforms, hosting, and decades of libraries.
Supports Gray tags and static includes as a bounded bridge, not PHP compatibility.
Existing application remains unchanged.
02 / Under pressure
Gray qualified through 60k requests/s for plaintext and JSON. nginx plus PHP-FPM qualified at 8k/s for both routes under the same one-CPU condition.
| Fixture | Gray | PHP |
|---|---|---|
| Plaintext | 60k/s · p99 85.76 ms | 8k/s · p99 48.03 ms |
| JSON | 60k/s · p99 81.15 ms | 8k/s · p99 51.55 ms |
| 12k plaintext | 98.8% delivery · p99 2.42 ms | 96.2% delivery · p99 970.2 ms |
| 20k JSON | 99.5% delivery · p99 2.35 ms | 52.9% delivery · overloaded |
1 Same-host qualification. Full environment, threshold, and scope appear in Claims & details below.
Gray's Live and Adaptive modes exist because compilation speed is not enough if the edit-test loop becomes ceremonial. Adaptive mode keeps the last valid worker serving, compiles a candidate, publishes only after readiness, and drains the previous worker.
That resembles the operational feeling PHP developers value, but the runtime underneath is persistent. State, connection pools, cancellation, and worker replacement therefore need explicit contracts that traditional request teardown often handles implicitly.
The formal fixture used nginx with PHP-FPM, not PHP's development server. Each runtime received the same server CPU, memory limit, routes, response bytes, requested-rate ladder, and corrected-latency client. PHP-FPM last met both delivery and p99 conditions at 8k/s.
That does not say a real Laravel, Symfony, WordPress, or optimized PHP application has one fixed ceiling. It says the minimal tested FPM stack formed a queue earlier than the minimal tested Gray stack under this topology.
Move JSON, database, worker, and infrastructure routes whose traffic justifies a native persistent server. Gray keeps the direct development style while replacing the FPM process ceiling with cooperative connections and runtime-owned deployment.
Keep CMS and Composer-heavy surfaces where they create product value; let Gray own the high-traffic backend paths that benefit from its runtime.
Decision guide
Migration
Choose one route with exact fixtures, not an entire framework application.
Introduce typed Gray boundaries around request data and database rows.
Use parameterized readiness-driven PostgreSQL and verify transaction behavior.
Run PHP and Gray side by side until parity and rollback are routine.
Questions
On Grayworth's published server tests, yes. Gray's highest qualifying tested rate was 60k/s on plaintext and JSON; nginx plus PHP-FPM qualified at 8k/s on both.¹
Yes. Live mode runs source directly, while Adaptive mode publishes valid updates and drains the previous worker without taking the service down.
Yes for APIs, workers, data services, and infrastructure routes. Keep framework or CMS surfaces that depend on their package ecosystems, and move the performance-critical backend to Gray.
Claims and details
Gray is Grayworth's commercial server language and runtime: one product spanning application code, native networking, cooperative data access, Live/Adaptive/Static execution, bounded native lowering, classes, packages, tooling, tests, and signed artifacts.
Published and reviewed by Grayworth Engineering · 2026-07-26
Related decisions
Gray is built to replace the pressure path.