Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

C VS Acton benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Mon Jun 23 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.)

helloworld

Input: QwQ

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 1.c 1.1ms 0.3ms 1.4MB 0ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 1.c 1.2ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 1.c 1.3ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
acton 1.act 3.7ms 0.2ms 4.1MB 0ms 0ms actonc 0.26.0

knucleotide

Input: 2500000_in

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 1-m.c 176ms 0.8ms 23.2MB 403ms 10ms gcc 15.1.0
c 1-m.c 315ms 16ms 25.7MB 1053ms 30ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1

Input: 250000_in

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 1-m.c 27ms 0.5ms 12.9MB 60ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 1-m.c 39ms 1.6ms 15.0MB 110ms 7ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1

mandelbrot

Input: 5000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 1-mffi.c 232ms 17ms 7.6MB 860ms 10ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 1-mffi.c 269ms 7.4ms 6.5MB 820ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 1-mffi.c 330ms 1.2ms 6.0MB 320ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 1-ffi.c 330ms 0.7ms 6.0MB 320ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 1-ffi.c 452ms 1.7ms 6.7MB 440ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 1-ffi.c 544ms 3.5ms 6.8MB 530ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0

Input: 1000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 1-mffi.c 15ms 1.3ms 4.8MB 33ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 1-mffi.c 17ms 0.1ms 3.0MB 10ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 1-ffi.c 17ms 0.3ms 3.0MB 10ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 1-mffi.c 19ms 1.7ms 3.8MB 47ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 1-ffi.c 22ms 0.3ms 3.6MB 10ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 1-ffi.c 28ms 3.7ms 3.6MB 20ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 8-i.c 266ms 0.5ms 1.5MB 260ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 8-i.c 301ms 1.1ms 2.1MB 290ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 2.c 310ms 1.6ms 2.3MB 300ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 2.c 312ms 0.6ms 1.5MB 300ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 5.c 313ms 1.3ms 2.3MB 303ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5.c 317ms 4.2ms 2.1MB 307ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5.c 318ms 0.9ms 1.5MB 310ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 2.c 320ms 0.6ms 2.1MB 310ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 8-i.c 336ms 0.8ms 2.3MB 330ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0

Input: 500000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 8-i.c 29ms 0.5ms 1.5MB 20ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 8-i.c 33ms 0.7ms 2.1MB 27ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 2.c 33ms 0.2ms 2.3MB 27ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5.c 33ms 0.1ms 2.3MB 30ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 2.c 34ms 0.9ms 1.5MB 30ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 5.c 35ms 0.5ms 2.1MB 30ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5.c 35ms 0.2ms 1.5MB 30ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 2.c 36ms 1.2ms 2.1MB 30ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 8-i.c 36ms 0.1ms 2.3MB 30ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0

nsieve

Input: 12

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 1.c 331ms 7.2ms 40.9MB 313ms 3ms gcc 15.1.0
c 1.c 347ms 11ms 40.3MB 330ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 1.c 362ms 17ms 41.0MB 343ms 7ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
acton 1.act timeout 0.0ms 561.0MB 6610ms 77ms actonc 0.26.0

Input: 10

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 1.c 52ms 2.1ms 11.6MB 40ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 1.c 53ms 1.8ms 11.7MB 40ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 1.c 56ms 4.4ms 11.0MB 43ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
acton 1.act 2558ms 15ms 192.4MB 3067ms 57ms actonc 0.26.0

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 3-m.c 737ms 1.3ms 2.3MB 2890ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 952ms 0.9ms 2.0MB 3750ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 4-m.c 998ms 13ms 2.0MB 3907ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 1001ms 0.7ms 3.3MB 3937ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 4-m.c 1122ms 4.0ms 3.3MB 4410ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 1144ms 1.6ms 2.0MB 4507ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5-im.c 1337ms 15ms 3.1MB 5243ms 3ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 1838ms 7.0ms 3.1MB 7227ms 7ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1

Input: 4000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 3-m.c 194ms 1.1ms 2.0MB 737ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 247ms 2.4ms 2.0MB 940ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 4-m.c 259ms 0.7ms 2.0MB 1000ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 268ms 16ms 3.4MB 1007ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 4-m.c 288ms 1.3ms 3.1MB 1100ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 294ms 0.9ms 2.0MB 1130ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5-im.c 376ms 62ms 3.3MB 1403ms 7ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 469ms 7.4ms 3.3MB 1800ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1

Input: 2000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 3-m.c 56ms 0.2ms 2.0MB 193ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 69ms 0.2ms 2.0MB 250ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 4-m.c 72ms 0.8ms 2.3MB 260ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 73ms 2.3ms 3.1MB 250ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 4-m.c 79ms 0.7ms 3.0MB 280ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 81ms 0.7ms 2.0MB 293ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5-im.c 92ms 0.2ms 3.1MB 333ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 123ms 0.9ms 3.3MB 453ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1