When you’re developing with Mendix, every second spent waiting for your app to boot quickly adds up. But which hardware actually delivers the best performance? And how much does it matter?

To answer these questions, I created a custom Mendix benchmark test and asked developers across the community to run it on their own machines. With a wide range of hardware tested, we can now draw real, data-driven conclusions.

Continue reading on to find out how to pick the best hardware for Mendix development. Want to read the full research and methodology? Check out the deep dive here.

Benchmark results

There is a huge difference in performance across hardware configurations.

The test was divided into two benchmarks:

  • Benchmark 1 measured the time to start a Mendix app
  • Benchmark 2 measured runtime performance, such as calculations, database retrievals, and commits.

The fastest machine completed Benchmark 1 in 00:46, while the slowest took 05:48. That means that you might have to wait seven times as long for your project to finish starting up when using improper hardware.

Running your project ten times a day on slower hardware can cost you nearly an hour of lost productivity every day, just waiting for your project to start.

We see similar discrepancies in Benchmark 2. The best score clocks in at 0:22, while the worst scores 1:56.

How to choose hardware

This loss in productivity using a slow machine is both annoying and costly. To prevent this, it’s important to choose the correct hardware for your day-to-day work.

In this guide, I’ll help you find the machine best suited to your needs.

The first decision is to pick a platform: Windows laptop, PC, or Mac.

Windows laptop

Windows laptops are most commonly used but have the greatest variance in performance. There are large differences between good and bad Windows laptops.

There are good Windows laptops, but there are also a lot of mediocre ones. Make sure to pick a decent laptop using the advice in the next chapter.

Windows desktop PC

Windows PCs are easy to configure and upgrade, offer probably the best price-to-performance ratio, but sacrifice portability.

Apple Mac

MacBooks score consistently good across the board. Though you will need to use Parallels because Studio Pro for Mac is still in Beta (including the extra costs this brings).

Choosing your specs

Whichever platform you choose, make sure you have at least 16GB of RAM and an SSD as the main storage device. When searching for a laptop, add any optional requirements such as screen technology and resolution, storage capacity, size, and weight.

Then, find the best processor within your budget. Find a CPU that scores at least a 20K on PassMark in the CPU Mark column, ideally 25K+. The higher the better.

When purchasing a MacBook, as long as it contains Apple Silicon (a processor such as M1, M2, M3, etc.), you are all set. You might need more RAM than a Windows laptop because you’ll need to run two operating systems at the same time. So get at least 24GB of RAM.

Summary

The CPU (processor) is the most important component for measuring Mendix performance. We can summarize our guidelines as follows:

  • Pick a platform.
  • Find the best processor that you can get.
  • Make sure you have at least 16GB of RAM (24GB for Mac).
  • You do not need a dedicated GPU.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section!

Disclaimer: This research was conducted independently and reflects my personal methodology and findings. Performance results may vary based on many factors such as Mendix project complexity, software versions, and system configurations. I am not affiliated with Mendix or any hardware vendor, and I do not take responsibility for purchasing decisions based solely on this article. Always consider your own development needs and test accordingly before committing to any hardware.