Benchmark: createTextNode() vs cloneNode(false)

Tests:

createTextNode()
var list = [], n = 0; while(true) { n++; list.push(document.createTextNode('hello, world!')); if(n===100000) break; }
cloneNode(false)
var list = [], n = 0, node = document.createTextNode('empty'); while(true) { n++; t = node.cloneNode(); t.textContent = 'hello, world'; list.push(t); if(n===100000) break; }

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
createTextNode()
cloneNode(false)

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Sumamry (model llama3.2:3b, generated 4 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into the world of JavaScript microbenchmarks on MeasureThat.net.

**What is being tested?**

The benchmark measures the performance difference between two approaches:

1. `createTextNode()`: This method creates a new text node in the DOM.
2. `cloneNode(false)`: This method clones an existing node (in this case, a text node created using `createTextNode()`) and returns a new copy of it.

**Options compared**

The benchmark compares two options:

1. **Create a text node directly**: Using `document.createTextNode('hello, world!')`
2. **Clone an existing text node**: Using `node.cloneNode(false)` on an already created text node

**Pros and Cons of each approach:**

* **`createTextNode()`**:
	+ Pros:
		- Fast, as it's a simple DOM operation
		- No overhead from cloning an existing node
	+ Cons:
		- Creates a new text node in the DOM, which can lead to increased memory usage and slower performance for large datasets
* **`cloneNode(false)`**:
	+ Pros:
		- Reuses the original text node, reducing memory usage and potentially improving performance for large datasets
	+ Cons:
		- Slower than creating a new text node from scratch, as it involves cloning an existing object

**Library and its purpose**

In this benchmark, no specific libraries are used beyond those included in the browser environment (e.g., `document`, `navigator`). However, if you were to modify the code, you might consider using libraries like [jsdom](https://github.com/jsdom/jsdom) for DOM manipulation or [lodash](https://www.lodash.com/) for utility functions.

**Special JavaScript feature**

The benchmark doesn't use any special JavaScript features beyond those commonly found in modern browsers. However, it's worth noting that the `while (true)` loop might not be optimal for performance in some browsers, as it can lead to longer execution times due to the overhead of repeatedly pushing new nodes onto an array.

**Other alternatives**

If you wanted to modify this benchmark or create a similar one, here are some alternative approaches:

1. Compare the performance of different DOM mutation APIs (e.g., `insertBefore()`, `appendChild()`)
2. Test the performance of various data structures (e.g., arrays, objects)
3. Measure the impact of using caching mechanisms (e.g., memoization) on performance
4. Evaluate the effects of parallel processing or async programming on microbenchmark performance

Keep in mind that the specific alternatives will depend on your goals and requirements.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/100.0.4896.127 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 100 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
createTextNode()	15.5 Ops/sec
cloneNode(false)	10.0 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

createTextNode() vs cloneNode(false) (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: createTextNode() vs cloneNode(false)

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

createTextNode()

cloneNode(false)

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Sumamry (model llama3.2:3b, generated 4 days ago):