A comparison of various language for performance.
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Python (3.7) https://www.python.org/
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LUA (5.3) https://www.lua.org/
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LUA with Just-In-Time compilation (jit) https://luajit.org/
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Javascript (NodeJS v10.15) https://nodejs.org/
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OCaml https://ocaml.org/
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OCaml (compiled) https://ocaml.org/
Counting the number of primes between 2 and 1,000,000 (included).
The result should be 78498
Because we are not interested in how fast the languages can print to stdout, we only display results at the end. We count the number of time we are in the main loop to avoid the loop being removed during optimization phases.
Everything was ran on Windows.
Mesurements were done with Measure-Command {<command_to_run>}
Every program was ran 3 times and the average time is displayed.
Measure-Command {python .\prime.py}
Measure-Command {lua .\prime.lua}
Measure-Command {luajit .\prime.lua}
Measure-Command {node .\prime.js}
gcc prime.c -o prime.exe -O3
Measure-Command {.\prime.exe}
Measure-Command {ocaml .\prime.ml}
ocamlc -o prime_ocaml prime.ml
Measure-Command {ocamlrun .\prime_ocaml}
| Language | Time (in ms) |
|---|---|
| Python | 5035 |
| Lua | 3049 |
| OCaml | 2269 |
| OCaml (C) | 1561 |
| Lua (jit) | 140 |
| JS | 365 |
| C | 177 |
JIT scripting languages (like JS and LUAjit) are way faster.
LUAjit is basically magic with performance as fast as C for a purely arithmetic program (almost no memory involved).
If you are using lua, consider switching to luajit if you need more speed.
The performance gain from compiling OCaml is disappointing.
The performance of Python is very bad. I would advise using python for prototyping and switching to something else for production or performance critical code.