Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Nim benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Sun Jun 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
nim 2.nim 779ms 1.2ms 34.4MB 760ms 3ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 963ms 9.3ms 35.2MB 940ms 10ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 3411ms 55ms 172.9MB 3287ms 110ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 104.9MB 4947ms 37ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 2.nim 75ms 4.0ms 5.5MB 63ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 91ms 2.7ms 5.8MB 80ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 287ms 0.8ms 15.8MB 267ms 7ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 818ms 12ms 16.9MB 803ms 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 0.9ms 0.0ms 1.5MB 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 1.3ms 0.1ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua 1.4ms 0.2ms 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 546ms 4.1ms 33.9MB 530ms 3ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 627ms 11ms 35.2MB 607ms 10ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4947ms 37ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4927ms 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 119ms 2.2ms 9.6MB 110ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 137ms 5.9ms 9.9MB 123ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1103ms 2.6ms 31.0MB 1073ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2131ms 17ms 28.6MB 2113ms 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 318ms 0.5ms 1.8MB 310ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 344ms 2.8ms 2.0MB 337ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 4.lua 713ms 2.3ms 2.3MB 707ms 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 34ms 0.6ms 1.8MB 30ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 37ms 1.1ms 2.0MB 30ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 4.lua 75ms 0.3ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1123ms 35ms 2.3MB 1117ms 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 1.2ms 1.6MB 3580ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 3604ms 3.0ms 1.8MB 3593ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 4062ms 9.7ms 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
nim 1.nim 898ms 0.5ms 1.5MB 890ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 903ms 2.7ms 1.3MB 893ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1019ms 1.0ms 2.4MB 1010ms 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 0.4ms 1.5MB 220ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 229ms 1.5ms 1.3MB 220ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 259ms 2.2ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7