Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Zig benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Wed Jan 22 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
zig 1.zig 1729ms 12ms 49.1MB 1700ms 13ms zig 0.13.0
lua 1.lua 3542ms 27ms 172.9MB 3407ms 117ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 104.9MB 4943ms 40ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 146ms 1.2ms 7.1MB 137ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
lua 1.lua 291ms 1.8ms 15.8MB 267ms 3ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 819ms 1.8ms 16.9MB 803ms 7ms lua 5.4.7

helloworld

Input: QwQ

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 1.0ms 0.1ms 1.3MB 0ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
lua 1.lua 1.5ms 0.1ms 2.4MB 0ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 1.8ms 0.4ms 2.1MB 0ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 831ms 6.3ms 41.1MB 800ms 17ms zig 0.13.0
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 107.5MB 4940ms 47ms lua 5.4.7
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 149.3MB 4933ms 47ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 170ms 0.9ms 11.1MB 153ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
lua 1.lua 1152ms 5.2ms 31.1MB 1120ms 17ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua 2299ms 31ms 28.6MB 2263ms 20ms lua 5.4.7

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 2.zig 274ms 0.5ms 1.1MB 270ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
zig 1.zig 313ms 0.7ms 1.3MB 300ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
lua 4.lua 725ms 27ms 2.3MB 717ms 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
zig 2.zig 29ms 0.0ms 1.1MB 20ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
zig 1.zig 34ms 0.3ms 1.3MB 27ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
lua 4.lua 74ms 1.2ms 2.3MB 67ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 4.lua 1103ms 17ms 2.3MB 1090ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 2-m.zig 473ms 1.2ms 3.9MB 1583ms 7ms zig 0.13.0
zig 2.zig 916ms 1.6ms 1.5MB 903ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
zig 1.zig 3670ms 6.3ms 1.5MB 3660ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
lua 1.lua 4060ms 12ms 2.5MB 4047ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.5MB 4987ms 0ms lua 5.4.7

Input: 4000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 2-m.zig 125ms 0.3ms 3.7MB 273ms 3ms zig 0.13.0
zig 2.zig 231ms 2.4ms 1.4MB 220ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
zig 1.zig 921ms 1.9ms 1.4MB 910ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
lua 1.lua 1017ms 2.5ms 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
zig 2-m.zig 39ms 1.5ms 3.7MB 33ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
zig 2.zig 60ms 0.8ms 1.4MB 50ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
zig 1.zig 232ms 0.8ms 1.4MB 220ms 0ms zig 0.13.0
lua 1.lua 257ms 0.2ms 2.3MB 247ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4987ms 0ms lua 5.4.7