Programming Language and compiler
Benchmarks

Results for 38 of 40 languages from this run on actest1.

Unavailable in this run: Hack, Lisp. Follow the run link for failure details.

Zig VS Perl benchmarks

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

CONTRIBUTIONS are WELCOME!

[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.)

binarytrees

Input: 18

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 2945ms 28ms 49.1MB 2920ms 7ms zig 0.14.1
perl 1.pl 28055ms 391ms 77.2MB 28003ms 33ms perl 5.38.2

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 280ms 53ms 7.1MB 240ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 1.pl 2485ms 46ms 13.8MB 2467ms 3ms perl 5.38.2

edigits

Input: 250001

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 5068ms 18ms 2.4MB 5030ms 20ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 100000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 841ms 12ms 2.0MB 823ms 3ms zig 0.14.1

fannkuch-redux

Input: 11

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 2-m.zig 833ms 6.5ms 1.5MB 3140ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 3-i.zig 1413ms 43ms 1.1MB 1400ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 2763ms 12ms 1.1MB 2753ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 10

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 2-m.zig 77ms 2.6ms 1.5MB 243ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 3-i.zig 124ms 4.7ms 1.1MB 113ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 239ms 3.8ms 1.1MB 227ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

fasta

Input: 2500000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 138ms 0.5ms 1.1MB 127ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 1.pl 6630ms 80ms 10.6MB 6613ms 0ms perl 5.38.2

Input: 250000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 17ms 1.2ms 1.1MB 10ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 1.pl 657ms 22ms 6.3MB 643ms 0ms perl 5.38.2

helloworld

Input: QwQ

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 1.3ms 0.5ms 1.1MB 0ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 1.pl 2.8ms 0.7ms 3.8MB 0ms 0ms perl 5.38.2

knucleotide

Input: 2500000_in

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1-m.zig 798ms 15ms 66.9MB 2580ms 27ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 1043ms 10ms 26.3MB 1013ms 7ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 250000_in

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1-m.zig 117ms 4.2ms 55.0MB 293ms 43ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 130ms 6.2ms 15.5MB 107ms 3ms zig 0.14.1

lru

Input: 1000 1000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 51ms 1.5ms 2.7MB 40ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 1000 3000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 143ms 5.9ms 2.7MB 133ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 100 500000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 26ms 0.9ms 1.1MB 13ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

mandelbrot

Input: 5000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 350ms 2.1ms 4.2MB 340ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 1000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 17ms 0.6ms 1.1MB 10ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

merkletrees

Input: 17

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 1494ms 63ms 41.2MB 1463ms 13ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 15

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 267ms 4.3ms 11.0MB 253ms 3ms zig 0.14.1

nbody

Input: 5000000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 3.zig 379ms 3.1ms 1.1MB 370ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 2.zig 470ms 2.9ms 1.1MB 457ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 510ms 3.2ms 1.1MB 500ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 2.pl 42316ms 505ms 5.8MB 42303ms 0ms perl 5.38.2

Input: 500000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 3.zig 42ms 3.2ms 1.1MB 33ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 2.zig 50ms 2.1ms 1.1MB 40ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 56ms 2.3ms 1.1MB 47ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 2.pl 4206ms 31ms 5.8MB 4193ms 0ms perl 5.38.2

nsieve

Input: 12

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 2.zig 552ms 15ms 6.0MB 543ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 958ms 9.6ms 40.1MB 940ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 10

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 2.zig 107ms 1.3ms 2.2MB 100ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
zig 1.zig 170ms 4.1ms 11.0MB 160ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

pidigits

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 3461ms 6.4ms 2.3MB 3433ms 13ms zig 0.14.1

Input: 4000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 854ms 121ms 1.9MB 837ms 0ms zig 0.14.1

spectral-norm

Input: 8000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 11057ms 6.2ms 1.1MB 11043ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 4-m.pl 126524ms 1315ms 13.2MB 496153ms 227ms perl 5.38.2

Input: 4000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 2773ms 1.4ms 1.1MB 2757ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 4-m.pl 31168ms 843ms 11.7MB 121797ms 47ms perl 5.38.2

Input: 2000

lang code time stddev peak-mem mem time(user) time(sys) compiler compiler/runtime
zig 1.zig 697ms 1.0ms 1.1MB 690ms 0ms zig 0.14.1
perl 4-m.pl 7425ms 112ms 9.9MB 28747ms 17ms perl 5.38.2