Benchmark: Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for Shallow Array of Strings.

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = ['cat', 'dog', 'bird'];
window.bar = ['cat', 'dog', 'bird'];

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: 19 hours ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	2363992.2 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	2329348.2 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into the explanation.

The provided JSON represents a JavaScript microbenchmark on MeasureThat.net, which compares the performance of two approaches for shallow array equality comparison: using Lodash's `isEqual` function and comparing JSON strings.

**Lodash's `isEqual` function**

Lodash is a popular JavaScript utility library that provides various functions to perform common tasks. In this case, `isEqual` is used to compare two values for deep equality.

Pros of using Lodash's `isEqual`:

1. Robustness: `isEqual` handles complex data structures and recursive objects.
2. Convenience: It eliminates the need to write custom comparison logic.
3. Performance: Optimized for performance, making it suitable for microbenchmarks.

Cons of using Lodash's `isEqual`:

1. Overhead: Including an external library adds overhead to the benchmark, which might not be desirable for all use cases.
2. Dependencies: The benchmark relies on the presence and version of the Lodash library in the environment.

**Comparing JSON strings**

The alternative approach is to compare JSON strings using the `===` operator or `JSON.stringify()` with no arguments.

Pros of comparing JSON strings:

1. Lightweight: This approach does not require including an external library.
2. Easy to implement: No additional dependencies are needed.

Cons of comparing JSON strings:

1. Limited scope: Only shallow equality is checked, which might not be sufficient for all use cases.
2. Potential issues with cyclic references or complex data structures.

**Comparison options**

The benchmark compares the performance of these two approaches:

1. `_.isEqual(window.foo, window.bar)`
2. `JSON.stringify(window.foo) === JSON.stringify(window.bar)`

These options are compared because they represent common patterns in JavaScript development: using external libraries for utility functions versus implementing custom comparisons.

**Special considerations**

In this benchmark, no special JavaScript features or syntax (e.g., async/await, promises) is used. However, it's essential to note that some modern browsers might have optimizations or quirks related to these features that could affect the benchmark results.

**Alternatives**

Other alternatives for shallow array equality comparison include:

1. `Array.prototype.every()` with a custom comparison function.
2. Using a library like Immer.js or a custom implementation of array equality.
3. Implementing a simple, lightweight comparison function using bitwise operations (e.g., comparing arrays element by element).

However, these alternatives might not be as widely supported or optimized for performance as Lodash's `isEqual` or the built-in `===` operator.

The benchmark results show that Lodash's `isEqual` is generally faster than comparing JSON strings, likely due to its optimized implementation and handling of complex data structures.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for Shallow Array of Strings. (version: 0)

Test on isEqual performance

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

Created: 6 years ago by: Registered User

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):