Node.js Has 1 Gb Memory Limit

It would be more correct to say that V8 has a 1G memory limit. But node.js actually gives you these nice things called Buffers which, according to the node.js manual, are "similar to an array of integers but corresponds to a raw memory allocation outside the V8 heap" (see <a href="http://nodejs.org/api/buffers.html" rel="nofollow">http://nodejs.org/api/buffers.html</a>).<p>Buffers are used all over the place in node, which should mitigate the degree to which this is actually a problem. Even if this bug report stays a wontfix, it won't affect my decision to use node because of Buffer support.

It's probably worth mentioning that the GC cycles start to take upwards of one second at around 500mb of RAM usage with lots of small objects.<p>This limit doesn't stop you using NodeJS, but it's definitely something newcomers should be made aware of before they start writing database servers or making heavy use of a naive in-memory cache through an object literal.<p>Hopefully when the new GC gets rolled out we'll really be able to let loose with the RAM usage.

Relevant snippets:<p>"diego.ca...@gmail.com, Sep 19, 2010<p>... In my case, I've been forced to suddenly stop my work ... with node.js because it cannot handle more than ~140K websockets concurrent connections ..."<p>"erik.corry, Nov 2, 2010<p>The limit for 64 bit V8 is around 1.9Gbytes now. Start V8 with the --max-old-space-size=1900 flag."

There's a general point to be made here: this is the sort of thing that happens when you have "closed development open source". Admittedly, there seem to be very few people in the world capable of delivering a world-class GC.

To add my own perspective: I was running some analytics batch job on Node and hit this limit, had to add multi-stage processing to accommodate it. Using --max-old-space-size=1900 did help a bit.<p>In case you're wondering, here's a test case: <a href="https://gist.github.com/1148761" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/1148761</a><p>I was told by one of the V8 developers that the new GC is pretty usable now, so worth giving it a shot if you need more than 2 Gb.

What rude and demanding bug reports.

I guess the point of posting it here is to gather folks with pitchforks and torches demanding immediate attention to the issue. For a few months V8 team has been working hard on improving the GC (<a href="http://code.google.com/p/v8/source/browse/branches/experimental/gc" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/v8/source/browse/branches/experimen...</a>) which was the major limiting factor here. I don't have an ETA of when it's going to be merged, but the new GC branch is in a pretty good shape.

This all boils down to using the right tool for the right task and knowing how to organize your code so you don't run in to limits in the platform components that you use.<p>In this case, the obvious solutions are to either use 'buffers' (think of them as extended memory from the old days) or to use multiple instances on the same machine or spread over several machines.<p>If you write your code in such a way that you end up handling all your users in a single process then you will sooner or later run in to some limitation.

This has been long known and looks to no longer be a problem soon reading the comments of the OP. It hasn't been a serious issue as long as you know about it going in.

They're running up against a V8 limit.

If there's anything I've learned in my software career, is that problems can be fixed. It sounds like this problem can, or already has been fixed. NodeJS is a wonderful platform to work with, nonetheless.

nice FUD headline

"C Has 16 Exabyte Memory Limit"