Benchmark: replaceWith vs replaceChild vs children[]

Tests:

replaceWith
let parentBox = document.createElement('div'); let Iframe1 = document.createElement('textarea'); parentBox.appendChild(Iframe1); let Video1 = document.createElement('input'); Iframe1.replaceWith(Video1);
replaceChild
let parentBox = document.createElement('div'); let Iframe2 = document.createElement('textarea'); parentBox.appendChild(Iframe2); let Video2 = document.createElement('input'); parentBox.replaceChild(Video2, Iframe2);
children[]=
let parentBox = document.createElement('div'); let Iframe3 = document.createElement('textarea'); parentBox.appendChild(Iframe3); let Video3 = document.createElement('input'); parentBox.children[0] = Video3

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
replaceWith
replaceChild
children[]=

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 22 hours ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The provided benchmark assesses the performance of three different methods for replacing DOM elements in JavaScript:

1. **replaceWith**
2. **replaceChild**
3. **children[]**

### Methods Overview

1. **replaceWith**
    - **Usage**: This method directly replaces the element on which it is called (in this case, a `textarea` element) with another element (`input`). 
    - **Pros**: Simple and straightforward syntax; directly targets the element to be replaced, minimizing the need for additional steps.
    - **Cons**: May not be as widely supported in older browsers compared to traditional methods.

2. **replaceChild**
    - **Usage**: This method belongs to the parent node and requires two parameters: the new node to insert (`input`) and the node to be replaced (`textarea`). 
    - **Pros**: Well-supported across all browsers; provides a clear relationship between parent and child nodes.
    - **Cons**: Slightly more verbose than `replaceWith`, which may be considered more intuitive.

3. **children[]**
    - **Usage**: Here, the benchmark accesses the children of a parent element and assigns a new element directly to an index.
    - **Pros**: Direct array-like syntax can be easier for developers who are familiar with array manipulations.
    - **Cons**: This approach can be less clear than the semantic purpose of replacing an element and may lead to confusion regarding the structure of the children array. Additionally, it might not guarantee proper updates to DOM structure or event listeners attached to the replaced element.

### Benchmark Results

The benchmark results indicate the number of executions per second for each method:

- **replaceChild**: 904,022.625 executions per second
- **replaceWith**: 875,738.1875 executions per second
- **children[]**: 703,066.125 executions per second

From the execution rates, it's clear that `replaceChild` is the fastest method tested, followed closely by `replaceWith`, while using `children[]` is the slowest.

### Other Considerations

- **Browser Compatibility**: While `replaceWith` is a modern addition to the DOM API, ensure compatibility with the audience's target browsers.
- **Event Listeners**: When replacing elements in a UI that has events bound to DOM elements, consider how the approach you choose affects those listeners. Both `replaceWith` and `replaceChild` will replace the old element entirely, potentially unintentionally removing any associated event listeners. The `children[]` method could also affect event listeners depending on how it's used.
- **Performance Impact**: These methods vary in performance. Always profile performance in the context of the specific application when complex UI updates occur frequently.

### Alternatives

Apart from these methods, possible alternatives for modifying the DOM may include:

- **innerHTML**: Modifying `innerHTML` of a parent element can replace child elements but comes with the downside of parsing HTML, which can lead to performance penalties and security risks (XSS vulnerabilities).
- **DocumentFragment**: A lightweight container for DOM operations can be used to create multiple elements before adding them to the main document to avoid multiple reflows or repaints.
- **Library Approaches**: Libraries like React or Vue.js abstract away direct DOM manipulation. They employ virtual DOM techniques, where changes are batched, lowering the number of direct manipulations, potentially improving performance in larger applications.

These approaches depend largely on the complexity of the application and the specific use cases being addressed. Each comes with its trade-offs in terms of readability, maintainability, and performance.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: yesterday)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
replaceWith	875738.2 Ops/sec
replaceChild	904022.6 Ops/sec
children[]=	703066.1 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

replaceWith vs replaceChild vs children[] (version: 5)

replace dom

Comparing performance of: replaceWith vs replaceChild vs children[]=

Created: yesterday by: Registered User

Jump to the latest result

replaceWith

replaceChild

children[]=

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 22 hours ago):