Lua VS Go benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Thu May 01 2025, full log can be found HERE

CONTRIBUTIONS are WELCOME!

[x86_64][4 cores] AMD EPYC 7763 64-Core Processor (Model 1)

* -m in a file name stands for multi-threading or multi-processing

* -i in a file name stands for direct intrinsics usage. (Usage of simd intrinsics via libraries is not counted)

* -ffi in a file name stands for non-stdlib FFI usage

* (You may find time < time(user) + time(sys) for some non-parallelized programs, the overhead is from GC or JIT compiler, which are allowed to take advantage of multi-cores as that's more close to real-world scenarios.)

binarytrees

Input: 18

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 1.go 1220ms 11ms 55.0MB 1197ms 10ms tinygo 0.37.0
go 1-m.go 2348ms 15ms 40.2MB 5240ms 33ms go 1.24.2
lua 1.lua 3518ms 55ms 172.8MB 3373ms 130ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 104.8MB 4943ms 40ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 1.go 113ms 1.8ms 5.6MB 100ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
go 1-m.go 208ms 0.9ms 8.1MB 367ms 7ms go 1.24.2
lua 1.lua 290ms 4.0ms 15.8MB 270ms 10ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 809ms 8.7ms 16.9MB 790ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

helloworld

Input: QwQ

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 1.go 0.9ms 0.1ms 0.4MB 0ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.2ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
go 1.go 1.5ms 0.1ms 3.4MB 0ms 0ms go 1.24.2
lua 1.lua 1.7ms 0.4ms 2.4MB 0ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 1.go 812ms 48ms 63.2MB 790ms 7ms tinygo 0.37.0
go 2.go 1106ms 0.8ms 55.0MB 1090ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
go 1-m.go 1446ms 5.8ms 41.0MB 3067ms 37ms go 1.24.2
go 2-m.go 1649ms 1.9ms 42.9MB 3640ms 33ms go 1.24.2
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4943ms 43ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4940ms 47ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 1.go 174ms 1.1ms 9.8MB 160ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
go 2.go 205ms 4.5ms 17.1MB 187ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
go 1-m.go 329ms 1.3ms 12.2MB 667ms 23ms go 1.24.2
go 2-m.go 373ms 3.4ms 13.8MB 783ms 27ms go 1.24.2
lua 1.lua 1081ms 4.4ms 31.3MB 1053ms 13ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2159ms 20ms 28.8MB 2140ms 7ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 1.go 346ms 0.8ms 0.4MB 340ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
go 1.go 350ms 2.0ms 3.5MB 340ms 0ms go 1.24.2
lua 4.lua 713ms 2.4ms 2.3MB 703ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.3MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 500000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 1.go 37ms 0.7ms 0.4MB 30ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
go 1.go 38ms 0.9ms 3.5MB 30ms 0ms go 1.24.2
lua 4.lua 76ms 0.9ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1142ms 41ms 2.3MB 1133ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 4-m.go 1913ms 15ms 5.5MB 7410ms 3ms go 1.24.2
go 1.go 3658ms 17ms 5.6MB 3650ms 0ms go 1.24.2
lua 1.lua 4063ms 2.9ms 2.5MB 4053ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
go 1.go timeout 0.0ms 0.5MB 4990ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.5MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 4000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 4-m.go 489ms 15ms 5.5MB 1830ms 0ms go 1.24.2
go 1.go 941ms 32ms 3.5MB 933ms 0ms go 1.24.2
lua 1.lua 1023ms 1.2ms 2.4MB 1013ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
go 1.go 1397ms 1.8ms 0.5MB 1390ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.1MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 2000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 4-m.go 125ms 0.5ms 5.6MB 453ms 0ms go 1.24.2
go 1.go 239ms 3.5ms 3.5MB 230ms 0ms go 1.24.2
lua 1.lua 262ms 0.6ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
go 1.go 351ms 1.0ms 0.4MB 343ms 0ms tinygo 0.37.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7