Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Zig benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Mon May 19 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
zig 1.zig 1831ms 43ms 49.0MB 1800ms 17ms zig 0.14.0
lua 1.lua 3557ms 39ms 172.9MB 3410ms 133ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 104.9MB 4953ms 37ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 155ms 3.9ms 7.0MB 143ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
lua 1.lua 292ms 2.5ms 15.8MB 270ms 7ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 818ms 6.5ms 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
zig 1.zig 0.9ms 0.0ms 1.1MB 0ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.1ms 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
zig 1.zig 859ms 8.1ms 41.0MB 830ms 17ms zig 0.14.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4950ms 33ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4930ms 57ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 175ms 1.5ms 11.0MB 163ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
lua 1.lua 1219ms 43ms 31.1MB 1187ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2203ms 7.2ms 28.6MB 2187ms 7ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 3.zig 198ms 0.9ms 1.0MB 190ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
zig 2.zig 279ms 0.5ms 1.0MB 270ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
zig 1.zig 315ms 1.1ms 1.1MB 310ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
lua 4.lua 714ms 3.6ms 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
zig 3.zig 22ms 0.3ms 1.0MB 10ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
zig 2.zig 30ms 0.1ms 1.0MB 20ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
zig 1.zig 34ms 0.4ms 1.1MB 30ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
lua 4.lua 75ms 1.4ms 2.4MB 67ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1124ms 44ms 2.3MB 1113ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 3690ms 7.6ms 1.4MB 3680ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
lua 1.lua 4074ms 26ms 2.5MB 4067ms 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
zig 1.zig 923ms 1.2ms 1.3MB 910ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
lua 1.lua 1025ms 6.0ms 2.4MB 1013ms 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
zig 1.zig 232ms 0.7ms 1.3MB 220ms 0ms zig 0.14.0
lua 1.lua 259ms 1.6ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7