Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS C benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Mon Apr 14 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 3698ms 5.1ms 172.9MB 3550ms 133ms 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 305ms 9.6ms 15.8MB 283ms 10ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 819ms 2.0ms 16.9MB 803ms 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 1.1ms 0.1ms 1.3MB 0ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.0
c 1.c 1.2ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 1.c 1.2ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.2ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua 1.7ms 0.3ms 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
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4947ms 37ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4937ms 50ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
lua 1.lua 1626ms 22ms 31.1MB 1600ms 13ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2403ms 68ms 28.8MB 2380ms 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 267ms 0.5ms 1.5MB 260ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.0
c 8-i.c 302ms 1.0ms 2.1MB 290ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 2.c 311ms 0.4ms 2.3MB 300ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 5.c 315ms 0.7ms 2.3MB 303ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 2.c 315ms 1.4ms 1.5MB 310ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.0
c 5.c 315ms 0.9ms 1.5MB 307ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.0
c 5.c 318ms 3.4ms 2.1MB 310ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 2.c 320ms 0.6ms 2.1MB 310ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 8-i.c 334ms 0.4ms 2.3MB 323ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
lua 4.lua 711ms 0.5ms 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 0.2ms 1.5MB 20ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.0
c 8-i.c 33ms 0.4ms 2.1MB 23ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5.c 34ms 0.3ms 2.3MB 30ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 5.c 34ms 0.5ms 1.5MB 27ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.0
c 2.c 34ms 0.6ms 2.3MB 27ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 2.c 34ms 0.2ms 1.5MB 30ms 0ms zigcc 0.14.0
c 2.c 35ms 0.8ms 2.1MB 30ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5.c 35ms 0.7ms 2.1MB 30ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 8-i.c 36ms 0.2ms 2.3MB 30ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
lua 4.lua 75ms 2.0ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1133ms 38ms 2.3MB 1123ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 6-im.c 963ms 12ms 2.0MB 3780ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 4-m.c 965ms 1.5ms 2.0MB 3797ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 6-im.c 1008ms 5.5ms 3.3MB 3950ms 3ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 1088ms 1.2ms 2.0MB 4290ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 4-m.c 1122ms 3.5ms 3.3MB 4407ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 1342ms 23ms 3.3MB 5257ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 1834ms 11ms 3.1MB 7227ms 7ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 1969ms 3.6ms 2.0MB 7777ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
lua 1.lua 4064ms 3.3ms 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 6-im.c 247ms 1.3ms 2.0MB 947ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 4-m.c 255ms 2.8ms 2.0MB 973ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 6-im.c 269ms 18ms 3.3MB 1007ms 3ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 284ms 3.3ms 2.0MB 1090ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 4-m.c 289ms 1.8ms 3.1MB 1103ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 341ms 1.0ms 3.3MB 1310ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 467ms 6.6ms 3.3MB 1810ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 497ms 0.7ms 2.0MB 1937ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
lua 1.lua 1022ms 2.6ms 2.4MB 1013ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.3MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 2000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
c 6-im.c 69ms 0.2ms 2.0MB 250ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 4-m.c 71ms 0.4ms 2.0MB 253ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 6-im.c 71ms 1.3ms 3.3MB 250ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 4-m.c 78ms 0.9ms 3.1MB 280ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 5-im.c 79ms 1.7ms 2.0MB 283ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
c 5-im.c 91ms 0.7ms 3.0MB 330ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 122ms 1.0ms 3.3MB 450ms 0ms clang 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
c 3-m.c 131ms 0.8ms 2.0MB 490ms 0ms gcc 14.2.0
lua 1.lua 260ms 3.0ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7