Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Nim 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
nim 2.nim 775ms 6.2ms 33.9MB 757ms 10ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 953ms 12ms 35.2MB 933ms 7ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 1.lua 3518ms 55ms 172.8MB 3373ms 130ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
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
nim 2.nim 76ms 2.3ms 5.5MB 67ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 92ms 3.6ms 5.8MB 83ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 1.nim 1.0ms 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 1.5ms 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

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
nim 1.nim 545ms 3.9ms 34.9MB 523ms 7ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 627ms 17ms 35.2MB 610ms 3ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 1.nim 117ms 2.0ms 9.6MB 107ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 133ms 1.1ms 9.9MB 120ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 2.nim 320ms 1.7ms 1.8MB 310ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 344ms 1.7ms 2.0MB 337ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
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
nim 2.nim 35ms 0.5ms 1.8MB 30ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
nim 2.nim 37ms 0.5ms 2.0MB 30ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
lua 4.lua 76ms 0.9ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
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
nim 1.nim 3589ms 1.3ms 1.6MB 3580ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 3603ms 8.0ms 1.4MB 3597ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
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
nim 1.nim 899ms 0.2ms 1.5MB 890ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 904ms 4.4ms 1.3MB 893ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
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
nim 1.nim 227ms 0.6ms 1.5MB 220ms 0ms nim/clang 2.2.4
nim 1.nim 228ms 1.2ms 1.3MB 220ms 0ms nim 2.2.4
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