Lua VS Php benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Mon Apr 14 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
lua 1.lua 3698ms 5.1ms 172.9MB 3550ms 133ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 105.0MB 4950ms 37ms lua 5.4.7
php 1.php timeout 0.0ms 141.9MB 4957ms 27ms php 8.2.28

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
lua 1.lua 305ms 9.6ms 15.8MB 283ms 10ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
php 1.php 625ms 5.0ms 63.0MB 593ms 17ms php 8.2.28
lua 1.lua 819ms 2.0ms 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 1.5ms 0.2ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua 1.7ms 0.3ms 2.4MB 0ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
php 1.php 50ms 1.2ms 52.5MB 18ms 22ms php 8.2.28

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
php 1.php 4002ms 68ms 114.0MB 3960ms 27ms php 8.2.28
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.4MB 4947ms 37ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4937ms 50ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
php 1.php 851ms 7.8ms 67.1MB 820ms 20ms php 8.2.28
lua 1.lua 1626ms 22ms 31.1MB 1600ms 13ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2403ms 68ms 28.8MB 2380ms 10ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
lua 4.lua 711ms 0.5ms 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
lua 4.lua 75ms 2.0ms 2.3MB 70ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1133ms 38ms 2.3MB 1123ms 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 4064ms 3.3ms 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
lua 1.lua 1022ms 2.6ms 2.4MB 1013ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.3MB 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 260ms 3.0ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7