Benchmark: _.sortBy vs JS sort

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.21/lodash.min.js" integrity="sha512-WFN04846sdKMIP5LKNphMaWzU7YpMyCU245etK3g/2ARYbPK9Ub18eG+ljU96qKRCWh+quCY7yefSmlkQw1ANQ==" crossorigin="anonymous" referrerpolicy="no-referrer"></script>

Script Preparation code:

var arr = [];
for (var i = 0; i < 1_000_000; i++) {
  arr.push({ value: Math.random() });
}

Tests:

Native JS sort
arr.sort((a, b) => a.value - b.value);
lodash sort
_.sortBy(arr, (arr) => arr.value);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Native JS sort
lodash sort

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Sumamry (model llama3.2:3b, generated 18 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into the world of JavaScript microbenchmarks.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark measures the performance difference between two approaches: native JavaScript sort and Lodash's `sortBy` function. The test case creates an array of 1 million objects with random values, sorts it using both methods, and compares their execution times.

**Options Compared**

Two options are compared:

1. **Native JS Sort**: This is the built-in sorting algorithm provided by JavaScript. It uses a stable sorting algorithm called Timsort, which was introduced in ECMAScript 2015 (ES6). Timsort has a worst-case time complexity of O(n log n), making it suitable for large datasets.
2. **Lodash Sort**: Lodash is a popular JavaScript library that provides various utility functions, including `sortBy`. `sortBy` uses the same Timsort algorithm as native JS sort but with additional optimizations and features like stability and parallelization.

**Pros and Cons**

Here's a brief summary of each approach:

* **Native JS Sort**:
	+ Pros:
		- Built-in functionality, no external dependency.
		- Typically faster due to optimized Timsort implementation.
		- More predictable performance.
	+ Cons:
		- Limited control over sorting parameters (e.g., stability).
		- May not work as expected with certain edge cases or library interactions.
* **Lodash Sort**:
	+ Pros:
		- Provides more flexibility and control over sorting parameters.
		- Can handle non-standard data types and edge cases.
		- Often faster than native JS sort for large datasets.
	+ Cons:
		- Requires an external dependency (Lodash).
		- May introduce overhead due to the library's complexity.

**Library: Lodash**

Lodash is a widely used JavaScript library that provides a collection of high-quality, customizable functions for various tasks. In this benchmark, `sortBy` is used to sort the array, which leverages Timsort under the hood. The `sortBy` function takes an additional callback parameter to specify the sorting key.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax: None**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntaxes being tested in this benchmark.

**Other Alternatives**

If you're interested in exploring alternative sorting algorithms, here are a few options:

* **Quicksort**: A fast and efficient sorting algorithm with an average time complexity of O(n log n).
* **Merge Sort**: Another stable sorting algorithm with a worst-case time complexity of O(n log n).
* **Heap Sort**: An in-place sorting algorithm with a time complexity of O(n log n) but can be slower for large datasets due to the overhead of heap operations.

For more advanced and performance-critical scenarios, consider exploring libraries like [fast-sort](https://github.com/isaacsmiles/fast-sort) or [sort-recursive](https://github.com/wellcaffeinated/sort-recursive), which offer optimized implementations of various sorting algorithms.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 8 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/130.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 130 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Native JS sort	36.7 Ops/sec
lodash sort	7.0 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

_.sortBy vs JS sort (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: Native JS sort vs lodash sort

Created: 3 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Native JS sort

lodash sort

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Sumamry (model llama3.2:3b, generated 18 days ago):