Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Nim 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
nim 2.nim 685ms 7.3ms 36.3MB 667ms 7ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 978ms 54ms 35.2MB 957ms 3ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 2.nim 64ms 2.2ms 6.9MB 53ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 93ms 1.9ms 5.8MB 80ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 1.nim 1.1ms 0.0ms 1.9MB 0ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 1.nim 1.6ms 0.2ms 2.6MB 0ms 0ms nim 2.2.4

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 1.nim 460ms 6.9ms 36.3MB 443ms 10ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 629ms 11ms 35.2MB 610ms 3ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 1.nim 95ms 2.9ms 11.0MB 83ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 134ms 0.8ms 9.9MB 123ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 2.nim 319ms 1.0ms 2.9MB 310ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 343ms 2.4ms 2.0MB 333ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 2.nim 34ms 0.2ms 2.9MB 30ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 38ms 1.4ms 2.0MB 30ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 1.nim 3589ms 0.8ms 1.6MB 3580ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 3591ms 1.0ms 2.8MB 3580ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 4064ms 5.2ms 2.5MB 4053ms 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 0.6ms 1.5MB 890ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 901ms 1.3ms 2.6MB 890ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 1018ms 0.4ms 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 227ms 0.4ms 1.5MB 220ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 228ms 1.2ms 2.6MB 220ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 258ms 0.6ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.1MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7