Benchmark: momentjs isBefore versus lt operator

HTML Preparation code:


<script src='https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.22.0/moment.min.js'></script>

Script Preparation code:

var now = moment()
var future = moment().add(5, "days")

Tests:

moment.isBefore()
return now.isBefore(future)
lt
return now < future

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
moment.isBefore()
lt

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 25 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

I'd be happy to explain the benchmark and its results.

**What is being tested?**

The provided JSON represents a JavaScript microbenchmark that compares two different approaches for checking if one date is before another: `moment.isBefore()` from the Moment.js library, and the `<` operator (the "lt" function).

**Options compared**

Two options are being compared:

1. **`moment.isBefore()`**: This function returns a boolean value indicating whether the first argument (`now`) is before the second argument (`future`). It's a utility function provided by the Moment.js library, which parses and manipulates dates.
2. **The `<` operator (lt)**: This is a built-in JavaScript operator that compares two values and returns a boolean value indicating whether the first value is less than the second.

**Pros and Cons of each approach**

1. **`moment.isBefore()`**: Pros:
	* More readable and maintainable code, as it's a separate function with a clear name.
	* Handles dates in a more human-readable format (e.g., "YYYY-MM-DD") and can parse various date formats.
	* Can be useful for dates that are not in the ISO 8601 format.

Cons:
	* Requires loading an external library (Moment.js).
	* May introduce additional overhead due to the library's initialization and parsing process.
2. **The `<` operator (lt)**: Pros:
	* Built-in JavaScript functionality, so no additional libraries or overhead.
	* Fast and efficient, as it's a simple comparison operation.

Cons:
	* Less readable code, as it relies on the reader understanding the "<" operator in the context of date comparisons.
	* May not handle dates in non-standard formats correctly.

**Library: Moment.js**

Moment.js is a popular JavaScript library for working with dates and times. It provides a simple and intuitive API for parsing, manipulating, and formatting dates, as well as providing various utility functions like `isBefore()`. The library can parse dates in various formats, including the ISO 8601 format used by most web applications.

**Other considerations**

* **Performance**: In general, built-in JavaScript operators are faster than loading an external library. However, the performance difference may be negligible for most use cases.
* **Readability and maintainability**: `moment.isBefore()` provides a more readable and maintainable code experience, especially when working with dates in non-standard formats or requiring human-readable date output.

**Alternative approaches**

If you're looking to avoid loading an external library like Moment.js, you could consider other alternatives:

1. **`Date` object comparison**: You can use the `>` and `<` operators directly on `Date` objects to compare dates.
2. **Custom implementation**: If performance is critical, you could implement a custom date comparison function using bitwise operations or other optimized algorithms.

However, these alternatives may not be as readable or maintainable as using `moment.isBefore()` or the `<` operator (lt).

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/119.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 119 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
moment.isBefore()	7079061.0 Ops/sec
lt	3842848.5 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

momentjs isBefore versus lt operator (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: moment.isBefore() vs lt

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

moment.isBefore()

lt

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 25 days ago):