WCF vs. .Net Remoting

Question

according to this article, WCF with named pipes is the best choice for IPC, and it is around 25 % faster than .Net Remoting.

I have the following code that compares WCF with named pipes with .Net Remoting:

[ServiceContract] internal interface IRemote {     [OperationContract]     string Hello(string name); }  [ServiceBehavior] internal class Remote : MarshalByRefObject, IRemote {     public string Hello(string name)     {         return string.Format("Hello, {0}!", name);     } }  class Program {     private const int Iterations = 5000;      static void Main(string[] args)     {         TestWcf(Iterations);         TestRemoting(Iterations);          TestWcf(Iterations);         TestRemoting(Iterations);          TestWcf(Iterations);         TestRemoting(Iterations);          Console.ReadKey();     }      private static void TestRemoting(int iterations)     {         var domain = AppDomain.CreateDomain("TestDomain");          var proxy =             (IRemote)             domain.CreateInstanceFromAndUnwrap(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location, "ConsoleApplication6.Remote");          Console.WriteLine("Remoting: {0} ms.", Test(proxy, iterations));     }      private static void TestWcf(int iterations)     {         var address = "net.pipe://localhost/test";          var host = new ServiceHost(typeof (Remote));         host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof (IRemote), new NetNamedPipeBinding(), address);         host.Open();          var proxy = ChannelFactory<IRemote>.CreateChannel(new NetNamedPipeBinding(), new EndpointAddress(address));          Console.WriteLine("Wcf: {0} ms.", Test(proxy, iterations));          host.Close();     }      private static double Test(IRemote proxy, int iterations)     {         var start = DateTime.Now;          for (var i = 0; i < iterations; i++)         {             proxy.Hello("Sergey");         }          var stop = DateTime.Now;          return (stop - start).TotalMilliseconds;     } } 

A got the following results for 5000 iterations:

Wcf: 14143 ms. Remoting: 2232 ms. Wcf: 14289 ms. Remoting: 2130 ms. Wcf: 14126 ms. Remoting: 2112 ms. 

Wcf is around 7 times slower than .Net Remoting in this test.

I tried to:

• set the security mode to None;
• set the InstanceContextMode to Single/PerCall;
• set the ConcurrencyMode to Single/Multiple;

but the results are the same.

Does anybody know what I do wrong? Why WCF is so slow?

Is there a way to speed up this code?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

I have modified the test a little bit. The contract is the same.

The first test looks like this (Wcf test):

class Program {     private const int Iterations = 5000;      static void Main(string[] args)     {         var address = "net.pipe://localhost/test";          var host = new ServiceHost(typeof(Remote));         host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IRemote), new NetNamedPipeBinding(NetNamedPipeSecurityMode.None), address);         host.Open();          var proxy = ChannelFactory<IRemote>.CreateChannel(new NetNamedPipeBinding(NetNamedPipeSecurityMode.None), new EndpointAddress(address));          TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);         TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);         TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);         TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);         TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);          Console.ReadKey();          host.Close();     }      private static void TestWcf(IRemote proxy, int iterations)     {         var start = DateTime.Now;          for (var i = 0; i < iterations; i++)         {             proxy.Hello("Sergey");         }          var stop = DateTime.Now;          Console.WriteLine("Wcf: {0} ms.", (stop - start).TotalMilliseconds);     } } 

Here are the results:

Wcf: 2564 ms. Wcf: 1026 ms. Wcf: 986 ms. Wcf: 990 ms. Wcf: 992 ms. 

The second test looks like this (.Net Remoting test):

class Program {     private const int Iterations = 5000;      static void Main(string[] args)     {         var domain = AppDomain.CreateDomain("TestDomain");          var proxy =             (IRemote)             domain.CreateInstanceFromAndUnwrap(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location, "ConsoleApplication6.Remote");          TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);         TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);         TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);         TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);         TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);          Console.ReadKey();     }      private static void TestRemoting(IRemote proxy, int iterations)     {         var start = DateTime.Now;          for (var i = 0; i < iterations; i++)         {             proxy.Hello("Sergey");         }          var stop = DateTime.Now;          Console.WriteLine("Remoting: {0} ms.", (stop - start).TotalMilliseconds);     } } 

Here are the results:

Remoting: 261 ms. Remoting: 224 ms. Remoting: 252 ms. Remoting: 243 ms. Remoting: 234 ms. 

As you can see, .Net Remoting is faster again. The tests were ran outside the debugger.

Why is this so?

Answer 1

Debuggers are not real measure when try to compare the performance , here is what I did and got WCF Kicking out Remoting from the ring ;)

1) Also modified your test to run it from same program/exe

  namespace ConsoleApplication6 {   [ServiceContract]   internal interface IRemote   {     [OperationContract]     string Hello(string name);   }    [ServiceBehavior]   internal class Remote : MarshalByRefObject, IRemote   {     public string Hello(string name)     {       return string.Format("Hello, {0}!", name);     }   }    class Program   {     private const int Iterations = 5000;      static void Main(string[] p)     {       TestWcf();       TestRemoting();     }       static void TestWcf()     {       var address = "net.pipe://localhost/test";        var host = new ServiceHost(typeof(Remote));       host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IRemote), new NetNamedPipeBinding(NetNamedPipeSecurityMode.None), address);       host.Open();        var proxy = ChannelFactory<IRemote>.CreateChannel(new NetNamedPipeBinding(NetNamedPipeSecurityMode.None), new EndpointAddress(address));        TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);       TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);       TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);       TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);       TestWcf(proxy, Iterations);        Console.WriteLine("WCF done");        host.Close();     }      private static void TestWcf(IRemote proxy, int iterations)     {       var start = DateTime.Now;        for (var i = 0; i < iterations; i++)       {         proxy.Hello("Sergey");       }        var stop = DateTime.Now;        Console.WriteLine("Wcf: {0} ms.", (stop - start).TotalMilliseconds);     }      static void TestRemoting()     {       var domain = AppDomain.CreateDomain("TestDomain");        var proxy =           (IRemote)           domain.CreateInstanceFromAndUnwrap(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location, "ConsoleApplication6.Remote");        TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);       TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);       TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);       TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);       TestRemoting(proxy, Iterations);       Console.WriteLine("Remoting done");       Console.ReadKey();     }      private static void TestRemoting(IRemote proxy, int iterations)     {       var start = DateTime.Now;        for (var i = 0; i < iterations; i++)       {         proxy.Hello("Sergey");       }        var stop = DateTime.Now;        Console.WriteLine("Remoting: {0} ms.", (stop - start).TotalMilliseconds);     }   }  } 

2) Compile it in release mode and ran it outside debugger.

here is my output