Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS OCaml benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Tue Jul 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 3177ms 13ms 157.2MB 3097ms 63ms ocaml 5.3.0
lua 1.lua 3562ms 89ms 173.0MB 3437ms 113ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 105.0MB 4953ms 37ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
ocaml 1.ml 234ms 3.5ms 19.2MB 217ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
lua 1.lua 289ms 0.8ms 15.8MB 260ms 10ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 828ms 3.7ms 16.9MB 810ms 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 1.4ms 0.1ms 2.0MB 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 1.8ms 0.2ms 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 1078ms 7.3ms 70.2MB 1040ms 27ms ocaml 5.3.0
ocaml 2.ml 2068ms 16ms 91.7MB 2013ms 40ms ocaml 5.3.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4950ms 40ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4923ms 60ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
ocaml 1.ml 145ms 3.7ms 21.7MB 130ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
ocaml 2.ml 361ms 9.3ms 27.7MB 340ms 7ms ocaml 5.3.0
lua 1.lua 1431ms 31ms 31.3MB 1400ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2403ms 38ms 28.8MB 2383ms 3ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
ocaml 1.ml 375ms 3.2ms 5.3MB 363ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
lua 4.lua 715ms 1.4ms 2.4MB 710ms 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 1.9ms 5.2MB 33ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
lua 4.lua 81ms 9.6ms 2.3MB 73ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1148ms 64ms 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
lua 1.lua 4063ms 3.7ms 2.5MB 4053ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
ocaml 2.ml 4567ms 4.6ms 6.4MB 4553ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
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
lua 1.lua 1020ms 2.2ms 2.4MB 1010ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
ocaml 2.ml 1145ms 4.4ms 6.1MB 1137ms 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 258ms 0.3ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
ocaml 2.ml 291ms 2.2ms 5.2MB 283ms 0ms ocaml 5.3.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7