Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Kotlin benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Sun Jul 13 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 502ms 0.9ms 575.9MB 597ms 100ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 1.lua 3544ms 45ms 172.9MB 3407ms 123ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1.kt 4076ms 141ms 134.1MB 4270ms 63ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
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
kotlin 1.kt 122ms 1.3ms 159.4MB 143ms 30ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 232ms 38ms 17.6MB 243ms 3ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua 290ms 5.5ms 15.7MB 267ms 10ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 814ms 5.2ms 16.9MB 797ms 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 1.4ms 0.2ms 2.4MB 0ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 1.4ms 0.2ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
kotlin 1.kt 2.2ms 0.1ms 3.0MB 0ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
kotlin 1.kt 62ms 0.6ms 47.7MB 74ms 18ms kotlin/jvm 21

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1.kt 387ms 9.9ms 680.6MB 443ms 93ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 1895ms 31ms 90.1MB 1967ms 43ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4950ms 33ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4933ms 57ms 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 155ms 0.4ms 207.1MB 213ms 40ms kotlin/jvm 21
kotlin 1.kt 267ms 13ms 25.5MB 270ms 13ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 1.lua 1101ms 2.2ms 31.1MB 1073ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2187ms 8.5ms 28.6MB 2170ms 3ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
kotlin 1n.kt 354ms 5.0ms 3.6MB 343ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
kotlin 1.kt 443ms 0.3ms 49.2MB 487ms 13ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 4.lua 713ms 3.7ms 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 1.6ms 3.6MB 30ms 0ms kotlin/native 2.1.20
lua 4.lua 74ms 0.9ms 2.3MB 67ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
kotlin 1-m.kt 119ms 1.7ms 49.5MB 170ms 13ms kotlin/jvm 21
lua 4.lua 1154ms 10ms 2.3MB 1143ms 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 4.0ms 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 1029ms 1.6ms 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
lua 1.lua 257ms 0.3ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.1MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7