Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Nim benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Tue Jul 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
nim 2.nim 819ms 29ms 34.4MB 800ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 968ms 6.2ms 35.2MB 950ms 3ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 3562ms 89ms 173.0MB 3437ms 113ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 105.0MB 4953ms 37ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 2.nim 77ms 2.5ms 5.5MB 70ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 93ms 2.5ms 5.8MB 80ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 289ms 0.8ms 15.8MB 260ms 10ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 828ms 3.7ms 16.9MB 810ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

helloworld

Input: QwQ

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 1.nim 1.0ms 0.0ms 1.5MB 0ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 1.1ms 0.0ms 1.8MB 0ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1.4ms 0.1ms 2.0MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua 1.4ms 0.2ms 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
nim 1.nim 550ms 7.5ms 34.9MB 533ms 7ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 626ms 13ms 35.2MB 607ms 3ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4950ms 40ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4923ms 60ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 1.nim 117ms 1.4ms 9.6MB 107ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 133ms 1.2ms 9.9MB 120ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1431ms 31ms 31.3MB 1400ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2403ms 38ms 28.8MB 2383ms 3ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 2.nim 319ms 1.6ms 1.8MB 310ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 341ms 1.3ms 2.0MB 330ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 4.lua 715ms 1.4ms 2.4MB 710ms 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
nim 2.nim 35ms 0.5ms 1.8MB 30ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 37ms 0.7ms 2.0MB 30ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 4.lua 81ms 9.6ms 2.3MB 73ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1148ms 64ms 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
nim 1.nim 3588ms 2.7ms 1.6MB 3580ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 3609ms 14ms 1.4MB 3603ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 4063ms 3.7ms 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
nim 1.nim 899ms 0.7ms 1.5MB 890ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 904ms 2.9ms 1.3MB 893ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1020ms 2.2ms 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
nim 1.nim 226ms 0.3ms 1.5MB 220ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 229ms 0.9ms 1.3MB 220ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 258ms 0.3ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7