I'm the author, and that's the truth.
Can't see how this can be replicated as a controlled experiment nowadays, unfortunately.
But if you define exactly what's a request, what's a response, and what the connection/response ratio is let's have a race.
Like, you set the parameters, and whoever serves that on lower-capability hardware wins. Py3 plus low-level C/Rust hacks vs Elixir, say.