Webrick is very slow to respond. How to speed it up?

Having the same issue here (even a year later). Under linux you have to do the following:

Look for the file /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/config.rb and edit it.

Replace the line

:DoNotReverseLookup => nil,

with

:DoNotReverseLookup => true,

Restart webrick and it'll work like a charm :)

Had the same problem. For me, this post held the solution. If you are on Ubuntu, stop (or uninstall) the avahi-daemon. service avahi-daemon stop stops the daemon.

Webrick now feels very speedy.

The problem has an old report in Rails Lighthouse, however, Ruby-on-Rails have moved their tickets to github since then; Kind of unfortunate that this old problem persists still.

Be aware though, that if you actually use avahi-daemon for something, like finding printers and scanners on your network, that won’t work anymore.