Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Kotlin benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Sun Jun 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
kotlin 1.kt 507ms 12ms 574.5MB 603ms 97ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 1.lua 3411ms 55ms 172.9MB 3287ms 110ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1.kt 3832ms 23ms 145.7MB 4013ms 63ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 104.9MB 4947ms 37ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1.kt 124ms 1.0ms 159.2MB 150ms 27ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 208ms 3.8ms 17.6MB 217ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua 287ms 0.8ms 15.8MB 267ms 7ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 818ms 12ms 16.9MB 803ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

helloworld

Input: QwQ

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
lua 1.lua 1.3ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua 1.4ms 0.2ms 2.4MB 0ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1.kt 2.2ms 0.1ms 3.1MB 0ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
kotlin 1.kt 62ms 0.6ms 47.7MB 74ms 16ms kotlin/jvm 21

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1.kt 384ms 3.9ms 680.1MB 450ms 87ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 1811ms 15ms 89.9MB 1887ms 43ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4947ms 37ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4927ms 57ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1-m.kt 158ms 4.9ms 207.2MB 210ms 43ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 255ms 3.0ms 25.3MB 260ms 10ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua 1103ms 2.6ms 31.0MB 1073ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2131ms 17ms 28.6MB 2113ms 7ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1n.kt 349ms 0.4ms 3.5MB 340ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
kotlin 1.kt 446ms 2.7ms 49.3MB 490ms 20ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 4.lua 713ms 2.3ms 2.3MB 707ms 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
kotlin 1n.kt 38ms 0.7ms 3.5MB 30ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 4.lua 75ms 0.3ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1-m.kt 119ms 0.7ms 49.6MB 163ms 20ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 4.lua 1123ms 35ms 2.3MB 1117ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
lua 1.lua 4062ms 9.7ms 2.5MB 4053ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
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
lua 1.lua 1019ms 1.0ms 2.4MB 1010ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
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
lua 1.lua 259ms 2.2ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7