{
  "id": 4875379,
  "title": "Low Latency and “Fast Enough”",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/01/low-latency-and-fast-enough",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-01T14:29:40.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/karen_barseghyan_8df21c6d/low-latency-and-fast-enough-4do5"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Low latency refers to the time between an event and the desired outcome, which varies by application. For user-facing apps, this could be the time between a click and a visible response. In data processing systems, it might be the time between receiving an item and producing a result. In electronic trading systems, it is the time between receiving market data and sending an order. The objective isn't always to achieve the lowest theoretical latency, but rather to be fast enough for the specific business case.\n\nLatency-sensitive flows can be categorized into three groups. The first is user experience. For most interactions, a latency range of 100-200 ms is acceptable, with 50-100 ms being preferable. Once an interaction is below roughly 50 ms, further reductions usually don't significantly enhance the user experience. User experience latency includes processing time at the frontend, network time between frontend and backend, backend processing, network time between backend and data storage, processing inside data storage, and reverse network path.\n\nThe second category is backend processes. Here, the primary concern isn't user experience, but ensuring the system can continuously handle its workload. For instance, if a permanent data stream is fed into a system, the system's total sustained processing capacity must exceed the incoming rate. Temporary buffers can absorb short-term overload, but a consistently slow processing capacity will lead to system failure and potential data loss.\n\nThe third category is competing systems. In this scenario, your system competes with others, and the business outcome directly depends on its performance. Here, latency needs to be as low as practically possible. Depending on the system, this could mean nanoseconds, microseconds, or avoiding avoidable milliseconds. If another system reacts to the same market event before yours, your order may be bypassed. In such cases, low latency isn't just about user satisfaction, but can directly impact the business result.\n\nIn conclusion, low latency is not a fixed number. It varies across different systems and is determined by the specific business case. The real goal is not merely to have \"low latency,\" but to understand the deadline established by the business case and to be \"fast enough\" for it.",
  "summary": "What is low latency? Why is it different from domain to domain? And what is “fast enough”? Everybody wants their application to have low latency. This is obvious. The real question is: how low ? Latency is the time between an event and the result we care about. For a user-facing application, it might be the time between a click and a visible response. In a data-processing system, it might be the…",
  "key_points": [
    "Low latency varies by application and business case",
    "Latency-sensitive flows divided into user experience, backend processes, and competing systems",
    "Goal is to be \"fast enough\" for specific business case"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}