It is genuinely wonderful to see the world of Classic ASP coming back to life. For a long time, it felt like a relic of the past, but the recent wave of modern tooling proves otherwise. The fact that several new emulation projects have emerged recently—often following in the footsteps of AxonASP—just goes to show that VBScript remains a surprisingly enjoyable, nostalgic, and productive language to program in.
Today, developers looking to run Classic ASP without legacy Windows servers have a few open-source options. While all these efforts are fantastic for the community, a deeper look at their architectures reveals why they serve very different purposes, and why one stands out for serious applications.
The Rise of Alternative Emulators: ASPPY and asp-classic-emulator
Recently, we've seen the introduction of projects like ASPPY (by PieterCooreman), which runs ASP scripts in Python, and the asp-classic-emulator (by MarceloDelgadoDev), which brings Classic ASP to the Node.js ecosystem.
These are incredibly interesting projects and great open-source initiatives. However, from an architectural standpoint, they cater to a specific niche. ASPPY, for instance, requires a large Python installation to function. More importantly, both the Python and Node.js solutions share a fundamental performance caveat: they rely on running an interpreted language (VBScript) on top of another interpreted environment.
This abstraction layer inevitably leads to higher memory consumption and CPU overhead. They are fun, conceptual sandboxes, but the underlying dependencies make them less than ideal for production environments where resource efficiency is paramount.
AxonASP: The Complete, Independent Runtime
This is where AxonASP separates itself from the pack. AxonASP is not just an emulator; it is a complete, independent runtime built from the ground up in GoLang.
Instead of relying on heavy runtime environments like Python or Node.js, AxonASP is distributed as a single, compiled executable. It requires zero heavy component installations, is natively cross-platform, and is perfectly tailored for modern, lightweight Docker containers.
Because it is a compiled solution, AxonASP bypasses the "interpreted-over-interpreted" trap entirely. Here is what makes its architecture superior for scaling Classic ASP:
- Direct Compilation: For VBScript, AxonASP utilizes direct compilation without an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST), resulting in incredibly low processing overhead.
- Modern JavaScript Support: It doesn't just stop at VBScript; it fully supports modern JavaScript, including ECMAScript 6 and beyond.
- Advanced Developer Tooling: It ships with built-in CLI/TUI support, an integrated test suite, and advanced standard libraries.
- Next-Gen Features: Developers also get access to modern workflows via axonlive and dedicated WebAssembly (WASM) tooling.
Benchmarks: The Cost of Architecture
The differences in these approaches become immediately clear when looking at resource utilization.
A standard API running on AxonASP consumes a mere 18MB of memory. By comparison, achieving the exact same result on the Node.js emulator inflates memory usage to around 50MB.
But AxonASP really shines under heavy load. When pushed past 2000 concurrent requests, the system doesn't buckle. Thanks to its advanced caching mechanisms and a highly efficient VM pool system, AxonASP maintains an incredibly stable footprint, delivering responses while consuming only about 115MB of memory.
Conclusion
It is a great time to be a Classic ASP enthusiast, and the fact that all these projects are open-source is a massive win for the community. ASPPY and the Node.js emulators are fantastic, niche projects for experimentation.
However, if you are moving beyond simple scripts into larger applications, those interpreted emulators will eventually present significant performance bottlenecks. For developers who need a robust, modern, and highly optimized engine—capable of handling high loads with minimal memory—AxonASP remains the definitive alternative.
Top comments (1)
This renewed interest in and resurgence of ASP Classic today is perfectly natural: it follows Microsoft's announcement to deprecate VBScript by Windows Server 2029 (at the earliest)... without ever having addressed the future of ASP Classic, which depends on
vbscript.dll!It's shameful of Microsoft: they are truly lacking a scripting language in their development offerings nowadays. Your excellent initiative and work developing AxonASP must continue, but I know that Microsoft has relationships with some of its most important customers, who are telling them that keeping VBScript as a Functionality-On-Demand (FOD) would be the best course of action.
This would allow system administrators and developers to run their ASP Classic code on Windows Server, an environment they obviously still depend on since ASP has never been available on Linux.
That's why I launched this petition, and I'm reposting its link: change.org/p/ask-microsoft-to-canc... 😮
Lucas, if you happen to have any contacts or ways to get this petition to Microsoft, please don't hesitate to contact me via private message.