Benchmark: Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for objects

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = {devices: ['cat', 'dog', 'bird'], type: 'something'};
window.bar = {devices: ['cat', 'dog', 'bird'], type: 'something'};

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: 2 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/106.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 106 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	612437.8 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	601625.1 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down what's being tested in the provided benchmark.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark compares the performance of two approaches to check for equality between two objects: `_.isEqual` from Lodash and a simple comparison using `JSON.stringify`.

**Lodash.isEqual**

`_.isEqual` is a function from the Lodash library that checks if two values are equal. It's designed to handle deep object comparisons, including arrays and other complex data structures.

Pros:

* Handles deep object comparisons
* Can be used in various contexts beyond equality checks

Cons:

* May have additional overhead compared to simple string comparison
* Requires an external library (Lodash)

**JSON.stringify Equality Comparison**

The alternative approach uses `JSON.stringify` to convert both objects into strings and then compares these strings for equality. This method is straightforward but can be slow for large or complex objects.

Pros:

* Fast, since it only requires a simple string comparison
* No additional overhead compared to native JavaScript functions

Cons:

* May not work correctly with custom object implementations or circular references
* Requires careful handling of edge cases (e.g., null, undefined, and NaN values)

**Library: Lodash**

Lodash is a popular utility library for JavaScript that provides various functions for tasks like array manipulation, object modification, and more. In this benchmark, `_.isEqual` is used to check for equality between two objects.

Pros:

* Provides a robust implementation of deep object comparison
* Can be used in many contexts beyond equality checks

Cons:

* Adds an external dependency (Lodash)

**Special JS Feature: None**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax being tested in this benchmark. It's focused on comparing the performance of two approaches to check for equality between objects.

**Alternative Approaches**

Other alternatives for checking object equality include:

1. Using `===` operator, which compares the values of both operands
2. Implementing a custom equality function using `for...in` or `Object.keys()`
3. Utilizing modern JavaScript features like `JSON.at()`, `JSON.keys()`, or `JSON.stringify()` with custom replacer functions

However, these alternatives may not be as efficient or robust as the approaches being compared in this benchmark.

**Benchmark Result Analysis**

The latest benchmark result shows that Chrome 106 on a Mac OS X 10.15.7 system performed:

* `.isEqual` (Lodash) at approximately 612437 executions per second
* `JSON.stringify` equality comparison at approximately 601625 executions per second

This suggests that, in this specific scenario, the Lodash implementation of `_.isEqual` is slightly faster than the simple `JSON.stringify` approach. However, the actual performance difference may vary depending on the specific use case and hardware configuration.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for objects (version: 0)

Test on isEqual performance

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

Created: 2 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):