Lua VS Kotlin benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Thu May 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
kotlin 1.kt 492ms 10ms 578.8MB 590ms 93ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 1.lua 3518ms 55ms 172.8MB 3373ms 130ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1.kt 3846ms 34ms 144.1MB 4020ms 77ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 104.8MB 4943ms 40ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1.kt 121ms 3.2ms 163.1MB 143ms 33ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 204ms 3.4ms 17.6MB 210ms 3ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua 290ms 4.0ms 15.8MB 270ms 10ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 809ms 8.7ms 16.9MB 790ms 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 1.7ms 0.4ms 2.4MB 0ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1.kt 2.2ms 0.2ms 3.1MB 0ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
kotlin 1-m.kt 61ms 0.9ms 47.6MB 78ms 16ms kotlin/jvm 21

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1.kt 406ms 17ms 680.2MB 453ms 90ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 1821ms 13ms 89.8MB 1913ms 43ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4943ms 43ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4940ms 47ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1-m.kt 159ms 7.9ms 207.3MB 207ms 40ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 259ms 1.7ms 24.9MB 263ms 10ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua 1081ms 4.4ms 31.3MB 1053ms 13ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2159ms 20ms 28.8MB 2140ms 7ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1n.kt 350ms 1.7ms 3.5MB 340ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
kotlin 1.kt 443ms 1.3ms 49.4MB 487ms 13ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 4.lua 713ms 2.4ms 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
kotlin 1n.kt 39ms 0.9ms 3.6MB 30ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 4.lua 76ms 0.9ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1-m.kt 119ms 0.7ms 49.7MB 167ms 20ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 4.lua 1142ms 41ms 2.3MB 1133ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
lua 1.lua 4063ms 2.9ms 2.5MB 4053ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.5MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 4000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
lua 1.lua 1023ms 1.2ms 2.4MB 1013ms 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
lua 1.lua 262ms 0.6ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7