Benchmark: Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify vs direct comparision of two elements

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/lodash@4.17.4/lodash.min.js"></script>

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = ['cat', 'dog',];
window.bar = ['cat', 'dog',];

Tests:

_.isEqual
_.isEqual(window.foo, window.bar)
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(window.foo) === JSON.stringify(window.bar);
Element comparision
window.foo[0] === window.bar[0] && window.foo[1] === window.bar[1]

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
_.isEqual
JSON.stringify
Element comparision

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 3 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/90.0.4430.72 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 90 on Linux

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	2125153.0 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	1268931.0 Ops/sec
Element comparision	2284382.8 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 2 months ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Measuring performance differences between various approaches can be crucial in optimizing code, especially when dealing with JavaScript microbenchmarks like the one provided.

**Overview of the Benchmark**

The benchmark tests three different methods for comparing two arrays: Lodash's `isEqual` function, JSON stringification, and direct element comparison. The goal is to determine which approach performs best in terms of execution speed.

**Library Used: Lodash**

Lodash is a popular JavaScript utility library that provides various functions for tasks such as array manipulation, object transformation, and more. In this case, the `isEqual` function is used to compare two arrays recursively.

**Special JS Features/Syntax**

There are no specific JavaScript features or syntax used in this benchmark that require special attention.

**Test Cases and Approaches Compared**

The benchmark compares three approaches:

1. **Lodash's `isEqual` function**: This approach uses Lodash's recursive function to compare the two arrays element-wise.
2. **JSON stringification**: This approach converts both arrays to JSON strings and then compares these strings using the `===` operator.
3. **Direct element comparison**: This approach directly compares each element of one array with the corresponding element in the other array.

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

1. **Lodash's `isEqual` function**:
	* Pros: Fast and efficient, handles nested arrays and objects recursively.
	* Cons: Requires Lodash to be loaded, may not perform well for very large arrays due to memory usage.
2. **JSON stringification**:
	* Pros: Simple and lightweight, does not require any additional libraries.
	* Cons: May not work correctly with complex data structures (e.g., objects), can be slow for large arrays.
3. **Direct element comparison**:
	* Pros: Fast and lightweight, does not require any additional libraries or data structure transformations.
	* Cons: May not handle nested arrays or objects correctly, requires manual loop or array iteration.

**Other Alternatives**

If you need to compare arrays in JavaScript, other alternatives include:

1. Using the `===` operator with the spread operator (`...`) to directly compare elements: `[...array1] === [...array2]`.
2. Utilizing a library like [fast-json-stamp](https://www.npmjs.com/package/fast-json-stamp) for faster JSON string comparison.
3. Implementing your own custom array comparison function, which may be optimized for specific use cases or performance requirements.

Keep in mind that the best approach depends on the specific use case and performance requirements of your application.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify vs direct comparision of two elements (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify vs Element comparision

Created: 3 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

_.isEqual

JSON.stringify

Element comparision

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 2 months ago):