The Apollo Router is a fast and efficient GraphQL Federation runtime written in Rust. It's designed to process incoming requests and fetch data from underlying services, with the goal of providing a responsive, efficient, and reliable experience for users. The router can handle high-throughput loads and has been benchmarked against the JavaScript Apollo Gateway, showing significant performance gains in various tests, including queries against single and multiple subgraphs with delays. The Apollo Router's performance is attributed to Rust's multi-threaded nature, better memory management, and libraries that enable high-performance network I/O. The team behind the router is committed to benchmarking and learning from conditions like these, and they're excited to see customers' own comparisons of the router's performance and how it compares to existing solutions.