Debian vs. Ubuntu vs. CentOS vs. openSUSE vs. Clear Linux Post-Meltdown Performance

The Python benchmark performance was unchanged with Clear running the fastest and CentOS 7 being the slowest out-of-the-box.

The Apache test profile had issues building on Debian 9 and openSUSE Leap, but between CentOS 7, Clear Linux, and Ubuntu 17.10, the performance hit was noticeable. Ubuntu 17.10 managed to run slightly ahead of Clear Linux in this context.

Fortunately, PHP performance isn't affected by this Spectre/Meltdown mitigation.

That's where the performance stands today with CentOS, Clear Linux, Debian, openSUSE and Ubuntu following their initial patches. It will certainly be interesting to see how the kernel code is optimized over the coming weeks/months as well as seeing the impact when Retpoline is more widely deployed. I suspect we'll see some nice gains once this code matures and it will certainly be re-benchmarked at Phoronix when the time comes.