Lua VS OCaml 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
ocaml 1.ml 2989ms 28ms 157.2MB 2907ms 67ms ocaml 5.3.0
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
ocaml 1.ml 218ms 4.7ms 19.2MB 203ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
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
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
ocaml 1.ml 1.7ms 0.1ms 5.1MB 0ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
ocaml 1.ml 1076ms 24ms 70.2MB 1033ms 30ms ocaml 5.3.0
ocaml 2.ml 2078ms 22ms 91.8MB 2027ms 37ms ocaml 5.3.0
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
ocaml 1.ml 146ms 3.2ms 21.6MB 127ms 3ms ocaml 5.3.0
ocaml 2.ml 355ms 5.3ms 27.7MB 337ms 3ms ocaml 5.3.0
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
ocaml 1.ml 371ms 0.1ms 5.3MB 360ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
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
ocaml 1.ml 41ms 1.7ms 5.2MB 33ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
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
lua 1.lua 4062ms 9.7ms 2.5MB 4053ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
ocaml 2.ml 4557ms 9.2ms 6.3MB 4543ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
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 1019ms 1.0ms 2.4MB 1010ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
ocaml 2.ml 1144ms 6.9ms 6.1MB 1133ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
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 259ms 2.2ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
ocaml 2.ml 295ms 8.4ms 5.2MB 283ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7