Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Nim benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Mon May 19 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
nim 2.nim 836ms 40ms 34.9MB 817ms 7ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 971ms 5.9ms 35.2MB 953ms 3ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 3557ms 39ms 172.9MB 3410ms 133ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 104.9MB 4953ms 37ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 2.nim 77ms 1.2ms 5.5MB 70ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 93ms 2.7ms 5.8MB 80ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 292ms 2.5ms 15.8MB 270ms 7ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 818ms 6.5ms 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
nim 1.nim 1.0ms 0.0ms 1.6MB 0ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 1.1ms 0.0ms 1.9MB 0ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.1ms 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
nim 1.nim 552ms 1.9ms 34.9MB 530ms 7ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 634ms 34ms 35.2MB 613ms 10ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4950ms 33ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4930ms 57ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 1.nim 120ms 2.4ms 9.6MB 110ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 135ms 2.2ms 9.9MB 123ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1219ms 43ms 31.1MB 1187ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2203ms 7.2ms 28.6MB 2187ms 7ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 2.nim 319ms 1.7ms 1.8MB 310ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 340ms 0.5ms 2.0MB 330ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 4.lua 714ms 3.6ms 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
nim 2.nim 35ms 1.0ms 1.8MB 30ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 40ms 6.2ms 2.0MB 33ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 4.lua 75ms 1.4ms 2.4MB 67ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1124ms 44ms 2.3MB 1113ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 1.nim 3587ms 2.7ms 1.6MB 3580ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 3610ms 12ms 1.4MB 3597ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 4074ms 26ms 2.5MB 4067ms 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
nim 1.nim 899ms 0.8ms 1.5MB 890ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 902ms 1.4ms 1.3MB 893ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1025ms 6.0ms 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
nim 1.nim 226ms 0.1ms 1.5MB 220ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 229ms 1.9ms 1.3MB 220ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 259ms 1.6ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7