Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Lua VS Zig 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
zig 1.zig 1718ms 14ms 49.0MB 1683ms 20ms zig 0.14.1
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
zig 1.zig 150ms 2.1ms 7.0MB 140ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
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
zig 1.zig 1.1ms 0.4ms 1.1MB 0ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
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

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 856ms 8.4ms 41.0MB 830ms 10ms zig 0.14.1
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
zig 1.zig 178ms 3.3ms 11.0MB 167ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
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
zig 3.zig 198ms 1.0ms 1.0MB 190ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 2.zig 279ms 0.5ms 1.0MB 270ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 315ms 0.7ms 1.1MB 310ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
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
zig 3.zig 21ms 0.2ms 1.0MB 10ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 2.zig 30ms 0.1ms 1.0MB 20ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 34ms 0.6ms 1.1MB 30ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
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
zig 1.zig 3684ms 1.8ms 1.4MB 3670ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
lua 1.lua 4062ms 9.7ms 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
zig 1.zig 927ms 2.1ms 1.3MB 920ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
lua 1.lua 1019ms 1.0ms 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 1.zig 232ms 0.3ms 1.3MB 220ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
lua 1.lua 259ms 2.2ms 2.3MB 250ms 0ms luajit 2.1.0-beta3
lua 1.lua timeout 0.0ms 2.0MB 4990ms 0ms lua 5.4.7