DSoftStudio Mediator

Benchmarks

All benchmarks run on .NET 10 using BenchmarkDotNet. Tested against Mediator 3.0.1 (source-generator based), DispatchR 2.1.1, and MediatR 14.1.

Latency

Operation	DSoft	Mediator (SG)	DispatchR	MediatR
`Send()`	2.7 ns	9.8 ns	27.1 ns	40.9 ns
`Send()` (5 behaviors)	6.6 ns	27.2 ns	31.2 ns	143.5 ns
`Publish()`	2.4 ns	6.3 ns	32.3 ns	112.9 ns
`CreateStream()`	30.7 ns	31.8 ns	54.0 ns	112.8 ns

Measured on .NET 11. On .NET 10 the same order holds with everything roughly twice as slow.

Startup is a separate table, because it answers a different question and the honest answer is less flattering. What a library adds to time-to-first-request, over a container holding one trivial service:

	DSoft	Mediator (SG)	DispatchR	MediatR
Added to startup	22.7 ms	10.2 ms	12.1 ms	31.5 ms
Startup allocation	32 KB	154 KB	651 KB	1,680 KB

This library is third of four on startup time. Most of its share is PrecompilePipelines() building the dispatch chains up front — the work that buys the 2.7 ns dispatch and the 32 KB.

Startup is measured one process per sample: it is a property of a process and cannot be seen from inside a warm one

Allocations

Operation	DSoft	Mediator (SG)	DispatchR	MediatR
`Send()`	72 B	72 B	72 B	272 B
`Send()` (5 behaviors)	72 B	72 B	72 B	1,088 B
`Publish()`	0 B	0 B	0 B	768 B
`CreateStream()`	232 B	232 B	232 B	624 B

Key Takeaways

72 B per Send is the ValueTask<T> boxing cost — the pipeline itself allocates nothing
Adding 5 behaviors does not increase allocation — interface dispatch chains are zero-alloc
Publish is 0 B — notification dispatch is fully allocation-free
MediatR allocates 1,088 B with 5 behaviors due to delegate chains (RequestHandlerDelegate<T>)

Pipeline Allocation Breakdown

Component	DSoft	MediatR
Handler resolution	0 B (singleton)	~40 B (transient `GetService`)
Pipeline chain	0 B (interface dispatch)	~160 B per behavior (delegate)
Return value	72 B (`ValueTask` box)	72 B (`Task` alloc)
5-behavior total	72 B	1,088 B

Feature Comparison

Feature	DSoft	Mediator (SG)	DispatchR	MediatR
Source generators	✔️	✔️	❌	❌
Native AOT compatible	✔️	✔️	❌	❌
Reflection-free hot path	✔️	✔️	❌	❌
Zero-alloc pipeline	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
Auto-Singleton handlers	✔️	❌	❌	❌
Self-handling requests	✔️	❌	❌	❌
Runtime-typed `Send(object)`	✔️	❌	❌	✔️
Compile-time pipeline	✔️	✔️	❌	❌
MediatR-style API	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️

Realistic Pipeline (Enterprise)

Measures all 4 libraries through a production-representative pipeline: Validation → Logging → Metrics → async database write with 3 pipeline behaviors, full DI, and simulated async I/O. Each library has its own DirectCall_WithPipeline fair baseline measured in the same isolated BenchmarkDotNet process.

Benchmark	Latency	Allocated	vs DirectCall
DSoft — Realistic Pipeline	666.9 ns	255 B	0.99×
DispatchR — Realistic Pipeline	666.7 ns	255 B	1.01×
Mediator SG — Realistic Pipeline	718.0 ns	397 B	1.06×
MediatR — Realistic Pipeline	857.1 ns	1,032 B	1.20×

Reproducing

Full BenchmarkDotNet results and source code are available in the /benchmarks folder.

dotnet run -c Release --project benchmarks/DSoftStudio.Mediator.Benchmarks

Individual library runs:

benchmarks/run-dsoft.cmd
benchmarks/run-mediatr.cmd
benchmarks/run-dispatchr.cmd
benchmarks/run-mediatorsg.cmd