bug: default create-t3-turbo template is significant slower than create-t3-app

[philippmossier]

Provide environment information

System:
OS: macOS 14.6.1
CPU: (10) arm64 Apple M1 Max
Memory: 10.66 GB / 64.00 GB
Shell: 5.9 - /bin/zsh
Binaries:
Node: 22.12.0 - ~/.local/state/fnm_multishells/11710_1735975103374/bin/node
Yarn: 1.22.22 - /opt/homebrew/bin/yarn
npm: 10.9.0 - ~/.local/state/fnm_multishells/11710_1735975103374/bin/npm
pnpm: 9.15.2 - /opt/homebrew/bin/pnpm
bun: 1.1.42 - /opt/homebrew/bin/bun
Watchman: 2024.09.30.00 - /opt/homebrew/bin/watchman

Describe the bug

🐛 Bug: t3-turbo API routes significantly slower than create-t3-app using the same Supabase setup

📝 Description

I've noticed a significant performance difference between the t3-turbo template and the create-t3-app template when interacting with the backend. Specifically, the post.create, post.all and post.getLatest routes take 1 to 1.4 seconds in t3-turbo, whereas similar API routes in create-t3-app take around 300 to 650 ms.

---

Update 11.Jan.2025 : Requests time are about 150ms for create-t3-app and 1000 -1300 ms for create-t3-turbo when removing the artifical delay (both use the same supabase DB connection)

---

Both projects were tested under similar conditions:

• Database: Supabase (Postgres) using transaction pooler connection string.
• ORM: Drizzle.
• API Client: tRPC.
• Network: Fast internet connection (~200 Mbps download, ~50 Mbps upload).
• Location: Europe (matching the Supabase region).
• Auth: Default auth setup via discord

---

Setup	Route	Time (ms)
t3-turbo	post.all	~1000-1400ms
t3-turbo	post.create	~1000-1300ms
create-t3-app	post.getLatest	~300-650ms
create-t3-app	post.create	~300-650ms

🖼️ Screenshots for Comparison

✅ create-t3-app

🐢 t3-turbo

To reproduce

Steps to Reproduce

Create a new project using create-t3-turbo.

Set up the Supabase database and connect it using POSTGRES_URL.

Use the default Drizzle setup for database queries.

Test the post.create and post.all tRPC routes using browser dev tools.

Compare the performance against a similar setup using create-t3-app with the same database.

[juliusmarminge]

create-t3-turbo/packages/api/src/trpc.ts

Line 104 in ceb7e3c

const waitMs = Math.floor(Math.random() * 400) + 100;

[philippmossier]

Thanks for the quick reply. Haha, I didn’t expect an artificial delay. Of course, removing the delay helps, but I’m still surprised that the requests take almost 1 second. Combined with the refetching of post.all, it takes nearly 2 seconds until the new post appears in the list.

Implementing optimistic updates helps here, but these response times still feel unusually slow to me. Am I missing something, or is this stack just not the fastest by design?

My database latency is consistently under 30ms, which seems fine. I still haven’t been able to figure out what’s causing this slow response.

[juliusmarminge]

trpc's overhead should be minimal, so unless there's something else that's taking time in your resolver it should be fast and definetely not slower than create-t3-app

[philippmossier]

Performance Comparison: create-t3-app vs create-t3-turbo

I haven't changed anything except for the .env file in both projects.

For create-t3-app, I removed the artificial delay, and now I get good response times around 110-150 ms.

---

✅ create-t3-app response time with Supabase (Postgres) using transaction pooler connection string

I think 150 ms is acceptable for a Supabase database connection (compared to ~50 ms for a local Postgres DB).

---

However, with create-t3-turbo, I still get 900 ms to 1300 ms response times using the same Supabase connection.

---

❌create-t3-turbo response time for the same Supabase DB connection

The create-t3-turbo project is nearly 1 second slower than create-t3-app with the exact same Supabase connection. 😞

[juliusmarminge]

Do you have auth on both projects?

[philippmossier]

Do you have auth on both projects?

Yes on both I use discord auth

[juliusmarminge]

And both have middleware?

[philippmossier]

And both have middleware?

Sorry I don't know what you mean by that. I have not added any additional middlerware. I am just using the out of the box discord auth, which means I have just added AUTH_DISCORD_ID and AUTH_DISCORD_SECRET to .env (also added http://localhost:3000/api/auth/callback/discord rediredt uri inside discord developer portal) and the authentication worked.

[juliusmarminge]

i mean does both apps have a src/middleware.ts file? just trying to understand what might be differenet

[philippmossier]

i mean does both apps have a src/middleware.ts file? just trying to understand what might be differenet

only the t3-turbo app has a src/middleware.ts

[philippmossier]

I debugged further and also added indexes to the schema.ts, similar to the create-t3-app schema, but there was no noticeable improvement in performance. Since the posts.all procedure is also taking around 1 second to complete and it’s a public procedure, I don’t think the issue is related to the auth middleware.

I have created plenty of fresh DBs, played around with drizzle config and also created new fresh create-t3-app and create-t3-turbo, but create-t3-turbo's response time are always 1 second slower than create-t3-app, no matter what I do.

I’m still new to this stack-setup, so I can’t say much more at this point. If I find anything, I’ll keep you updated.

In the meantime, is there an older branch I could check out that might not have this performance issue?

[ImBIOS]

i mean does both apps have a src/middleware.ts file? just trying to understand what might be differenet

only the t3-turbo app has a src/middleware.ts

middleware.ts will significantly add response time. you should make both dev env the same and as identical as possible.

give reproducable repo if possible.

[philippmossier]

i mean does both apps have a src/middleware.ts file? just trying to understand what might be differenet

only the t3-turbo app has a src/middleware.ts

middleware.ts will significantly add response time. you should make both dev env the same and as identical as possible.

give reproducable repo if possible.

Hi thanks for the answer.

I just cloned both t3 repos (create-t3-turbo and create-t3-app) and changed nothing besides the .env so that I can use discord auth and a subapase DB.
Both use the same connection strings of the DB but create-t3-turbo adds almost 1 second additional response time.

The middleware.ts file of create-t3-turbois also the default one after cloning (which anyway just holds a config with a matcher string for some next image related stuff)

I have still no idea where this 1 additonal second of response time comes from :S

I planned to provide a reproducable repo, but I wasn't able to use a local docker postgres with create-t3-turbo, but I would bet even then create-t3-turbo is almost 1 second slower than create-t3-app