Django-LiveView-vs-Phoenix-LiveView/README.md

Django LiveView vs Phoenix LiveView: a real benchmark

A reproducible, Docker-based benchmark comparing django-liveview (WebSocket + Django Channels + Stimulus) against Phoenix LiveView (WebSocket + BEAM + LiveView diffs).

Both apps implement an identical alert dashboard: add, delete, and search alerts in real time. The benchmark is fully automated with Playwright headless Chromium.

---

Stack versions

Component	Django LiveView	Phoenix LiveView
Language	Python 3.12	Elixir 1.17.3 / OTP 27
Framework	Django 6.0.5	Phoenix 1.7
LiveView lib	django-liveview 2.2.0	phoenix_live_view 1.0
WS layer	Channels 4.3.2 + channels-redis 4.3.0	Built-in (BEAM)
HTTP server	Uvicorn 0.47.0	Bandit 1.5
Database	PostgreSQL 16	PostgreSQL 16
Cache/broker	Redis 7	—

---

How each framework works

	Django LiveView	Phoenix LiveView
Transport	WebSocket (Django Channels)	WebSocket (BEAM)
Updates	Explicit HTML snippets per selector	Automatic template diffs
State	Stateless (DB per action)	In-memory assigns + DB for mutations
JS	liveview.js (Stimulus + WS client)	phoenix_live_view.js
Server	Uvicorn (ASGI)	Bandit (HTTP/WS)

---

Scenarios

Common (10 iterations, 2 warmup)

#	Scenario	What it measures
1	Add alert	Click → new row appears (append)
2	Delete alert	Click → row disappears
3	Search / filter	Input → filtered list rendered

Edge cases (5 iterations, 1 warmup)

#	Scenario	What it measures
4	Add to large list	Add one alert with 500 already loaded
5	Rapid fire	5 consecutive clicks (50 ms apart) → all 5 rows appear
6	Empty search	Search for non-existent term → empty state

---

Results

Full results, charts, and analysis are available in the article:

Django LiveView vs Phoenix LiveView: a real benchmark

---

How to run

1. Start the apps

docker compose up --build -d django phoenix

Wait until both are healthy (check docker compose ps).

2. Run the benchmark

docker compose --profile bench run --rm benchmark

Results land in ./results/ as:

• results_<timestamp>.csv — raw per-iteration data
• report_<timestamp>.md — summary tables (replace the placeholders above)

3. Manual exploration

App	URL
Django LiveView	http://localhost:8001
Phoenix LiveView	http://localhost:8002

---

Benchmark methodology

• Timing: wall-clock time.perf_counter() from DOM action to DOM mutation detected by Playwright.
• WS payload: Playwright framesent / framereceived events summed per interaction.
• Warmup: first N iterations discarded (default 2 for common, 1 for edge cases).
• DB state: cleared via HTTP /bench/clear/ before each scenario; pre-populated via /bench/populate/?count=N where needed.
• WS ready: benchmark waits for #ws-status to read "connected" before starting.
• Browser: headless Chromium via Playwright.

---

Related work

• django-interactive-frameworks-benchmark — previous benchmark comparing multiple Django interactive frameworks.
• django-liveview — the Django LiveView package used here.