Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Kotlin benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Fri Aug 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 500ms 16ms 578.4MB 597ms 97ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 1.lua 3513ms 23ms 173.0MB 3370ms 130ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1.kt 3911ms 6.4ms 143.8MB 4087ms 70ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 105.0MB 4950ms 37ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1.kt 122ms 1.1ms 159.5MB 143ms 37ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 203ms 6.2ms 17.3MB 210ms 3ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua 290ms 1.7ms 15.9MB 270ms 7ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 817ms 0.3ms 17.0MB 800ms 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 1.4ms 0.1ms 2.4MB 0ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 1.4ms 0.2ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
kotlin 1.kt 2.2ms 0.2ms 3.0MB 0ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
kotlin 1.kt 61ms 0.9ms 47.6MB 74ms 18ms kotlin/jvm 21

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1.kt 386ms 5.6ms 680.7MB 433ms 93ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 1880ms 15ms 89.9MB 1963ms 40ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4947ms 40ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.4MB 4923ms 63ms 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 154ms 0.3ms 207.3MB 210ms 40ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 268ms 4.1ms 25.6MB 273ms 13ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua 1101ms 8.1ms 31.1MB 1073ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2192ms 63ms 28.8MB 2170ms 10ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1n.kt 352ms 2.5ms 3.5MB 340ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
kotlin 1.kt 442ms 1.2ms 49.6MB 483ms 20ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 4.lua 711ms 0.9ms 2.4MB 700ms 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 39ms 0.6ms 3.5MB 30ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 4.lua 77ms 1.2ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1-m.kt 118ms 1.3ms 49.6MB 160ms 20ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 4.lua 1145ms 12ms 2.3MB 1137ms 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 4064ms 5.2ms 2.5MB 4053ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.4MB 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 1018ms 0.4ms 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 258ms 0.6ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.1MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7