Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS C 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
lua 1.lua 3513ms 23ms 173.0MB 3370ms 130ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
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
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
c 1.c 1.0ms 0.1ms 1.3MB 0ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 1.c 1.2ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
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
c 1.c 1.6ms 0.7ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
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
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
c 8-i.c 268ms 0.7ms 1.5MB 260ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 8-i.c 303ms 1.7ms 2.1MB 290ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 2.c 310ms 1.5ms 2.3MB 300ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 2.c 312ms 1.1ms 1.5MB 300ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 5.c 314ms 2.4ms 2.3MB 303ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5.c 315ms 1.3ms 2.1MB 307ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5.c 316ms 1.0ms 1.5MB 310ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 2.c 317ms 0.2ms 2.1MB 310ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 8-i.c 336ms 0.3ms 2.3MB 330ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
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
c 8-i.c 29ms 0.5ms 1.5MB 20ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 8-i.c 32ms 0.4ms 2.1MB 23ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5.c 34ms 0.4ms 2.3MB 30ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 2.c 34ms 0.1ms 1.5MB 30ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 5.c 34ms 0.4ms 2.1MB 27ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 2.c 34ms 0.3ms 2.3MB 30ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 2.c 34ms 0.4ms 2.1MB 30ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5.c 34ms 0.6ms 1.5MB 30ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.1
c 8-i.c 36ms 0.2ms 2.3MB 30ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
lua 4.lua 77ms 1.2ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
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
c 3-m.c 744ms 14ms 2.0MB 2913ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 951ms 1.1ms 2.0MB 3750ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 4-m.c 990ms 3.6ms 2.1MB 3893ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 1002ms 3.4ms 3.4MB 3940ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 4-m.c 1118ms 0.6ms 3.1MB 4400ms 3ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 1149ms 13ms 2.0MB 4520ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5-im.c 1338ms 17ms 3.3MB 5263ms 3ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 1841ms 23ms 3.3MB 7240ms 7ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
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
c 3-m.c 193ms 0.4ms 2.0MB 737ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 245ms 0.2ms 2.0MB 937ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 258ms 0.6ms 3.1MB 987ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 4-m.c 261ms 3.1ms 2.0MB 1000ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 4-m.c 287ms 0.9ms 3.3MB 1103ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 293ms 0.6ms 2.0MB 1130ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5-im.c 340ms 0.6ms 3.3MB 1310ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 463ms 0.0ms 3.3MB 1807ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
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
c 3-m.c 58ms 5.3ms 2.0MB 203ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 68ms 0.4ms 2.0MB 243ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 6-im.c 70ms 0.3ms 3.3MB 247ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 4-m.c 72ms 0.6ms 2.1MB 260ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 4-m.c 77ms 0.2ms 3.0MB 280ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 80ms 0.2ms 2.0MB 290ms 0ms gcc 15.1.0
c 5-im.c 92ms 0.5ms 3.3MB 330ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 122ms 0.9ms 3.3MB 450ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
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