Benchmark: Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = {species: 'cat', details: {kind: 'shorthair', height: 2 , length: 3}};
window.bar = {species: 'cat', details: {kind: 'shorthair', height: 2 , length: 3}};

Tests:

_.isEqual
_.isEqual(window.foo, window.bar)
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(window.foo) === JSON.stringify(window.bar);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
_.isEqual
JSON.stringify

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/111.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/111.0.1661.44

Browser/OS: Chrome 111 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	490966.5 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	633539.6 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**Benchmark Overview**

The provided JSON represents a JavaScript microbenchmarking test created on the MeasureThat.net website. The benchmark compares the performance of two methods: `lodash.isEqual` and `JSON.stringify`.

**Options Compared**

Two options are compared:

1. **_.isEqual (Lodash)**: A utility function from the Lodash library that checks if two values are equal.
2. **JSON.stringify**: A built-in JavaScript method that converts a value to a JSON string.

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

* **_.isEqual (Lodash)**
	+ Pros:
		- More flexible and powerful than `JSON.stringify`, as it can handle complex data structures and nested objects.
		- May be faster for large or complex data sets, since it doesn't require converting the entire object to a string.
	+ Cons:
		- Requires an additional library (Lodash) to be included in the test environment.
		- May have additional overhead due to the library's dependencies and loading mechanism.
* **JSON.stringify**
	+ Pros:
		- Built-in method, no additional library required.
		- Simple and efficient, as it only converts the object to a string without modifying its structure.
	+ Cons:
		- Limited functionality compared to _.isEqual, as it only checks for deep equality of primitive values.
		- May be slower than _.isEqual for large or complex data sets, since it requires converting the entire object to a string.

**Library and Purpose**

The Lodash library is used in this benchmark. It provides a set of high-order functions that make common programming tasks easier and more efficient. In this case, `_.isEqual` is used to compare two objects for equality.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

None of the provided code uses any special JavaScript features or syntax that would require additional explanation. The code is straightforward and easy to understand.

**Other Alternatives**

If you wanted to compare these methods using a different approach, here are some alternatives:

1. **Use `===` operator**: Instead of comparing objects directly, you could use the `===` operator to check if two object references are equal. This would be similar to using `JSON.stringify`, but without converting the entire object to a string.
2. **Use a custom implementation**: You could implement your own comparison function that iterates over the properties of both objects and checks for equality. This approach would provide more control over the comparison process, but may also introduce additional overhead.

Keep in mind that using `===` or a custom implementation might not provide the same level of performance as using _.isEqual or JSON.stringify, especially for large or complex data sets.

Related benchmarks:

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

Created: 3 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

_.isEqual

JSON.stringify

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):