Lua VS Crystal benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Tue Mar 25 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
crystal 1.cr 1276ms 8.3ms 64.0MB 1257ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 1.lua 3609ms 57ms 172.8MB 3463ms 133ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 104.9MB 4947ms 40ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
crystal 1.cr 105ms 2.2ms 10.9MB 90ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 1.lua 296ms 4.6ms 15.6MB 273ms 10ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 822ms 9.4ms 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
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.2ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.1ms 2.4MB 0ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
crystal 1.cr 2.0ms 0.5ms 2.8MB 0ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
crystal 1.cr 864ms 6.5ms 64.0MB 843ms 10ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.5MB 4950ms 33ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4927ms 60ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
crystal 1.cr 157ms 3.4ms 22.1MB 143ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 1.lua 1193ms 7.0ms 31.3MB 1163ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2269ms 74ms 28.6MB 2247ms 7ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
crystal 2.cr 344ms 4.8ms 3.3MB 333ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
crystal 1.cr 345ms 2.6ms 3.3MB 333ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 4.lua 717ms 7.0ms 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
crystal 1.cr 38ms 1.5ms 3.1MB 30ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
crystal 2.cr 38ms 0.5ms 3.1MB 30ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 4.lua 77ms 2.5ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1108ms 50ms 2.3MB 1100ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
crystal 1.cr 3792ms 11ms 4.5MB 3783ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 1.lua 4066ms 6.0ms 2.5MB 4057ms 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
crystal 1.cr 952ms 1.2ms 4.3MB 940ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 1.lua 1030ms 16ms 2.4MB 1020ms 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
crystal 1.cr 248ms 11ms 3.8MB 237ms 0ms crystal 1.15.1
lua 1.lua 261ms 2.6ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.1MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7