Lua VS Wasm benchmarks

Current benchmark data was generated on Sun Sep 27 2026, full log can be found HERE

CONTRIBUTIONS are WELCOME!

CPU INFO:[x86_64][4 cores] Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3687U CPU @ 2.10GHz (Model 58)

* -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.)

show numbers without parallelization

show numbers with parallelization

binarytrees

Input: 18

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	5.rs	2706ms	23ms	31.8MB	2683ms	7ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
wasm	4.rs	2716ms	16ms	31.9MB	2693ms	10ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
wasm	3.rs	2830ms	30ms	47.9MB	2800ms	13ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	1.lua	6633ms	183ms	291.4MB	6527ms	87ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	1.lua	16420ms	378ms	152.3MB	16370ms	30ms	lua 5.4.6

Input: 15

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	4.rs	256ms	0.8ms	20.1MB	240ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
wasm	5.rs	258ms	2.6ms	18.1MB	240ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
wasm	3.rs	288ms	29ms	20.0MB	270ms	3ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	1.lua	578ms	29ms	24.9MB	553ms	3ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	1.lua	1185ms	23ms	17.5MB	1173ms	0ms	lua 5.4.6

helloworld

Input: QwQ

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
lua	1.lua	1.6ms	0.3ms	2.4MB	0ms	0ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	1.lua	2.2ms	0.4ms	1.8MB	0ms	0ms	lua 5.4.6
wasm	1.rs	7.3ms	0.6ms	18.9MB	0ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	1.rs	1381ms	5.3ms	39.9MB	1357ms	7ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	1.lua	15068ms	464ms	183.4MB	14980ms	70ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	1.lua	18968ms	144ms	107.9MB	18917ms	33ms	lua 5.4.6

Input: 15

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	1.rs	292ms	3.2ms	21.8MB	270ms	7ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	1.lua	2066ms	2.3ms	36.3MB	2040ms	7ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	1.lua	3347ms	133ms	28.8MB	3327ms	3ms	lua 5.4.6

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	1.rs	621ms	3.5ms	16.6MB	603ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
wasm	2.rs	622ms	5.9ms	16.5MB	610ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	4.lua	1312ms	8.1ms	1.6MB	1303ms	0ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	4.lua	19839ms	364ms	1.8MB	19823ms	0ms	lua 5.4.6

Input: 500000

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	1.rs	72ms	1.4ms	16.4MB	60ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
wasm	2.rs	74ms	5.5ms	16.7MB	63ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	4.lua	139ms	4.9ms	1.5MB	127ms	0ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	4.lua	1941ms	5.9ms	1.8MB	1927ms	0ms	lua 5.4.6

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	7.rs	5534ms	4.6ms	16.3MB	5520ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
wasm	2.rs	11040ms	32ms	16.8MB	11030ms	3ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	1.lua	11058ms	4.0ms	2.6MB	11047ms	0ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	1.lua	167091ms	2385ms	2.9MB	167067ms	3ms	lua 5.4.6

Input: 4000

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	7.rs	1395ms	1.6ms	16.7MB	1383ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
wasm	2.rs	2771ms	8.4ms	16.7MB	2760ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	1.lua	2774ms	9.6ms	2.7MB	2760ms	0ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
lua	1.lua	41466ms	392ms	2.6MB	41447ms	0ms	lua 5.4.6

Input: 2000

lang	code	time	stddev	peak-mem mem	time(user)	time(sys)	compiler compiler/runtime
wasm	7.rs	358ms	2.2ms	18.7MB	343ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	1.lua	698ms	2.1ms	1.5MB	687ms	0ms	luajit 2.1.1703358377
wasm	2.rs	702ms	1.7ms	14.8MB	690ms	0ms	wasmtime 48.0.2
lua	1.lua	10267ms	17ms	1.7MB	10257ms	0ms	lua 5.4.6