Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Go 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
go 1.go 1726ms 16ms 51.9MB 1707ms 10ms tinygo 0.38.0
go 1-m.go 2343ms 11ms 41.9MB 5213ms 33ms go 1.24.5
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
go 1.go 152ms 0.5ms 5.0MB 140ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
go 1-m.go 207ms 1.7ms 8.3MB 367ms 7ms go 1.24.5
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
go 1.go 0.8ms 0.1ms 0.3MB 0ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
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
go 1.go 1.5ms 0.1ms 3.4MB 0ms 0ms go 1.24.5

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
go 1.go 1027ms 9.5ms 35.4MB 1010ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
go 2.go 1327ms 3.3ms 51.9MB 1307ms 10ms tinygo 0.38.0
go 1-m.go 1436ms 4.6ms 35.2MB 3040ms 37ms go 1.24.5
go 2-m.go 1649ms 17ms 40.9MB 3633ms 33ms go 1.24.5
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
go 1.go 206ms 2.0ms 11.6MB 193ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
go 2.go 261ms 3.0ms 15.4MB 250ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
go 1-m.go 327ms 1.0ms 12.2MB 660ms 20ms go 1.24.5
go 2-m.go 368ms 1.6ms 14.0MB 770ms 27ms go 1.24.5
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
go 1.go 349ms 3.6ms 0.3MB 340ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
go 1.go 350ms 1.9ms 3.5MB 340ms 0ms go 1.24.5
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
go 1.go 37ms 1.3ms 0.3MB 30ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
go 1.go 38ms 0.1ms 3.5MB 30ms 0ms go 1.24.5
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
go 4-m.go 1906ms 16ms 5.4MB 7413ms 3ms go 1.24.5
go 1.go 3693ms 15ms 5.6MB 3690ms 0ms go 1.24.5
lua 1.lua 4064ms 5.2ms 2.5MB 4053ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
go 1.go timeout 0.0ms 0.5MB 4990ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
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
go 4-m.go 480ms 1.0ms 5.5MB 1843ms 0ms go 1.24.5
go 1.go 924ms 10ms 3.5MB 917ms 0ms go 1.24.5
lua 1.lua 1018ms 0.4ms 2.4MB 1010ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
go 1.go 1397ms 0.7ms 0.4MB 1390ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
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
go 4-m.go 125ms 1.2ms 5.6MB 457ms 0ms go 1.24.5
go 1.go 233ms 5.1ms 3.5MB 223ms 0ms go 1.24.5
lua 1.lua 258ms 0.6ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
go 1.go 351ms 0.8ms 0.4MB 340ms 0ms tinygo 0.38.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.1MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7