Multi-client benchmarks on Ethereum 2.0 mainnet

Read the full article: https://dev.to/q9/ethereum-2-0-mainnet-clients-3and (mirror)

Host systems (5x)

• Machine: Hetzner Dedicated Root Server EX42-NVMe
• Location: HEL1 (Helsinki, Finland)
• OS: Arch Linux latest minimal (English)
• CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 (QuadCore/Skylake/HT)
• RAM: 64GB DDR4
• Disk: 2x512GB NVMe SSD (RAID 1)

Ethereum 2.0 mainnet

• Spec version: v1.0.0
• Circa 420_000 slots at start time
• 5 different clients compatible with mainnet spec
  • Lighthouse
  • Prysm (#8209)
  • Nimbus
  • Teku
  • Lodestar (#1217) (#2005)

Lighthouse

• Lighthouse v1.1.0-e4b6213

• from git tags/v1.1.0

• Rust 1.49.0, Cargo 1.49.0

• Built in --release mode

  cargo build --release

Prysm

• beacon-chain version Prysm/v1.1.0/9b367b36fc12ecf565ad649209aa2b5bba8c7797. Built at: 2021-01-18 19:47:14+00:00

• from binary release v1.1.0

  ./prysm.sh beacon-chain

Teku

• teku/v21.1.1/linux-x86_64/oracle_openjdk-java-11

• from git tags/21.1.1

• Java 11.0.10, Gradle 6.8.1

• Built in dist mode

  ./gradlew installDist

Nimbus

• Nimbus beacon node v1.0.6-87955f2d-stateofus

• from git tags/v1.0.6

• Nim 1.2.6, Make 4.3.0

• Built in -d:release -d:insecure mode

  NIMFLAGS="-d:insecure -d:release" make -j $(nproc) nimbus_beacon_node

Lodestar

• lodestar 0.14.0

• from git tags/v0.14.0

• Node 12.20.1, Lerna 3.22.1

• Built in default mode

  lerna bootstrap

Metrics collected

• unix: unix time of data in seconds
• time: time since client start in seconds
• slot: current client slot as number
• sps: slots per second as reported by client in seconds^{-1} (lighthouse only)
• db: database size in bytes
• pc: connected peer count as number
• out: outgoing network traffic by beacon node process in bytes (via nethogs)
• inc: incoming network traffic by beacon node process in bytes (via nethogs)
• cpu: average %user cpu usage over last second of host system in percent (via mpstat)
• metrics derived:
  • vtime: adjusted time; 0 once first slot synced
  • sps60: 60s moving average from slot number and time variable
  • nout: regard out traffic as negative value -out
  • trff: sum of inc and out

Previous benchmarks

• eth2-bench-2020-10 (Medalla Testnet)
• eth2-bench-2020-07 (Altona Testnet)
• eth2-bench-2020-06 (Witti Testnet)

See also: Resource Analysis of Ethereum 2.0 Clients (Barcelona Supercomputing Center)