Comparing BGP Stacks' Performance: bird vs. frr vs. OpenBGP vs gobgp Shootout Data Published

Sep 02, 2021 @ 12:00 pm

bgp, bird, border gateway protocol, frr, gobgp, internet, ipv4, network, openbgp

BGP Most users don’t spend a lot of time worrying about BGP, much less BGP performance. But if you the kind of person who worries about BGP performance, it’s likely very important to you.

BGP is the Border Gateway Protocol. It’s used in routing information on the Internet. Or if you want a slightly more detailed description, it’s used to route on the Internet between Autonomous Systems (typically an Internet Service Provider). It’s the routing topology for the Internet. Worrying about this kind of routing is not something your typical Internet user or even VM/dedi server customer worries about, but a provider does.

Justin Pietsch, a former AWS network engineer, published a research study comparing the performance of various BGP software stacks, and he recently updated it with fresh data. Tested software includes bird, frr, OpenBGP, and gobgp, and he varies the number of neighbors and prefixes in order to compare systems. There’s a ton of data and it’s well-presented here in an unbiased fashion. Pietsch declares “I’m not really going to declare a winner” but does some draw conclusions.

If you’re a provider or network professional, it’s an interesting read.

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raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308