Benchmark: Date.parse vs new Date.getTime

Tests:

new Date().getTime
new Date('01/01/2001').getTime();
Date.parse()
Date.parse('01/01/2001');

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
new Date().getTime
Date.parse()

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/115.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome Mobile 115 on Android

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
new Date().getTime	2046653.2 Ops/sec
Date.parse()	2264482.8 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into explaining the JavaScript microbenchmark on MeasureThat.net.

**What is tested?**

The benchmark tests two approaches to get the current time in milliseconds: using the `Date.parse()` method and the `new Date().getTime` method.

**Options compared:**

1. **Date.parse()**: This method takes a string as input and returns the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC.
2. **new Date().getTime**: This method returns the number of milliseconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC) in the local timezone.

**Pros and Cons:**

* **Date.parse()**:
	+ Pros: Can be used with a specific date string, which might be useful for certain use cases.
	+ Cons: May not work correctly with all date formats, can return incorrect results if the input string is malformed, and its performance is generally slower compared to `new Date().getTime`.
* **new Date().getTime**:
	+ Pros: More accurate and faster than `Date.parse()`, as it uses the system's clock directly.
	+ Cons: Requires creating a new `Date` object, which might be overhead for some use cases.

**Library usage:**

In this benchmark, no specific library is used. The comparison is solely between two built-in JavaScript methods.

**Special JS feature or syntax:**

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

**Other alternatives:**

If you need to get the current time in milliseconds, other alternatives could be:

* `performance.now()`: This method returns the number of milliseconds since the performance measurement started.
* `Date.now()`: Similar to `new Date().getTime`, but might not work correctly in some environments (e.g., older browsers).
* `Intl.DateTimeFormat().resolvedOptions().timeZoneOffset`: This method returns the offset from UTC in minutes, which can be used to get the current time.

Keep in mind that these alternatives may have different use cases and performance characteristics compared to the methods being tested in this benchmark.

Related benchmarks:

Date.parse vs new Date.getTime (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: new Date().getTime vs Date.parse()

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

new Date().getTime

Date.parse()

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):