Benchmark: getElementById vs getElementsByTagName vs querySelector vs querySelectorAll

HTML Preparation code:

<sy-sd-portal id="test"></sy-sd-portal>

Tests:

getElementById
var test = document.getElementById('test').innerHTML;
getElementsByTagName
var test = document.getElementsByTagName('sy-sd-portal')[0].innerHTML;
querySelector
var test = document.querySelector('sy-sd-portal').innerHTML;
querySelectorAll
var test = document.querySelectorAll('sy-sd-portal')[0].innerHTML;

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
getElementById
getElementsByTagName
querySelector
querySelectorAll

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/113.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 113 on Linux

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
getElementById	2103466.2 Ops/sec
getElementsByTagName	1573520.0 Ops/sec
querySelector	1663839.8 Ops/sec
querySelectorAll	735191.9 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided benchmark and explain what's being tested, compared options, pros and cons of each approach, library usage, special JavaScript features, and other considerations.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark measures the performance of four different methods to retrieve an HTML element from a document:

1. `getElementById`
2. `getElementsByTagName`
3. `querySelector`
4. `querySelectorAll`

These methods are used to select elements in the Document Object Model (DOM).

**Comparison Options**

Here's a brief description of each method and their pros and cons:

### 1. `getElementById`

* Description: Retrieves an element by its ID using the `document.getElementById()` method.
* Pros: Fast, reliable, and widely supported.
* Cons: Can be slower for elements with similar IDs.

**Example Benchmark Code**
```javascript
var test = document.getElementById('test').innerHTML;
```
### 2. `getElementsByTagName`

* Description: Retrieves a collection of elements by their tag name using the `document.getElementsByTagName()` method.
* Pros: Flexible, but can be slower due to the need to iterate through the collection.
* Cons: Can be slow if there are many elements with the same tag name.

**Example Benchmark Code**
```javascript
var test = document.getElementsByTagName('sy-sd-portal')[0].innerHTML;
```
### 3. `querySelector`

* Description: Retrieves an element by its CSS selector using the `document.querySelector()` method.
* Pros: Fast, flexible, and widely supported.
* Cons: Can be slower for complex selectors.

**Example Benchmark Code**
```javascript
var test = document.querySelector('sy-sd-portal').innerHTML;
```
### 4. `querySelectorAll`

* Description: Retrieves a collection of elements by its CSS selector using the `document.querySelectorAll()` method.
* Pros: Flexible, but can be slower due to the need to iterate through the collection.
* Cons: Can be slow if there are many elements that match the selector.

**Example Benchmark Code**
```javascript
var test = document.querySelectorAll('sy-sd-portal')[0].innerHTML;
```
**Library Usage**

There is no explicit library usage in this benchmark. However, it's worth noting that `querySelector` and `querySelectorAll` rely on CSS selectors, which are a part of the W3C DOM specification.

**Special JavaScript Features**

There are no special JavaScript features used in this benchmark. The code is straightforward and uses standard DOM methods.

**Other Considerations**

When choosing an element retrieval method, consider the following factors:

* Speed: `getElementById` is generally faster than `querySelectorAll`, but `querySelector` can be competitive for simple selectors.
* Flexibility: `querySelector` and `querySelectorAll` offer more flexibility than `getElementById` and `getElementsByTagName`.
* Support: All four methods are widely supported, but `querySelector` and `querySelectorAll` are part of the W3C DOM specification.

**Alternatives**

If you need to benchmark other element retrieval methods, consider:

* `getElementsByClassName`: Similar to `querySelector`, but uses class names instead of CSS selectors.
* `getElementsByAttribute`: Retrieves elements by attribute name-value pairs.
* `document.querySelector('::attribute')` and `document.querySelectorAll('::attribute')`: Use pseudo-classes to select elements based on attribute presence or value.

Note that this benchmark focuses on retrieving an element's inner HTML, which may not be the most efficient way to use these methods. Other benchmarks might focus on specific use cases, such as selecting elements by class name or attribute.

Related benchmarks:

getElementById vs getElementsByTagName vs querySelector vs querySelectorAll (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: getElementById vs getElementsByTagName vs querySelector vs querySelectorAll

Comparing performance of: getElementById vs getElementsByTagName vs querySelector vs querySelectorAll

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

getElementById

getElementsByTagName

querySelector

querySelectorAll

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):