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

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = [{ name: 'Jim', age: 4 }, { name: 'Al', age: 62 }];
window.bar = [{ name: 'Jim', age: 4 }, { name: 'Al', age: 62 }];

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: 4 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.121 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 85 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	450346.7 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	471263.2 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided benchmark and explain what is tested.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark measures the performance of two equality comparison methods: `_.isEqual` from Lodash (a popular utility library for JavaScript) and direct comparison using `JSON.stringify`. The test compares two shallow arrays of strings, which are created and stored in the `window.foo` and `window.bar` variables.

**Options Compared**

There are two options being compared:

1. **Lodash's `.isEqual` method**: This function checks if two objects or values are equal. It is designed to handle various types of data, including arrays, objects, strings, numbers, booleans, etc.
2. **Direct Comparison using `JSON.stringify`**: This method converts the input values into a JSON string and then compares the resulting strings for equality.

**Pros and Cons**

Here's a brief summary of the pros and cons of each approach:

* **Lodash's `.isEqual` method**:
	+ Pros: Handles complex data structures, customizable comparison function, and optimized performance.
	+ Cons: May introduce additional overhead due to its utility library nature, and some users might find it less intuitive than direct comparison.
* **Direct Comparison using `JSON.stringify`**:
	+ Pros: Simple, fast, and lightweight. It leverages the browser's native JSON serialization capabilities, making it suitable for most use cases.
	+ Cons: May not be as robust or flexible as Lodash's `.isEqual`, especially when dealing with complex data structures or custom comparison logic.

**Library Usage**

The benchmark uses Lodash version 4.17.4, which is a popular and widely adopted library for JavaScript utility functions. `_.isEqual` is a core function in Lodash that provides a robust implementation of object equality checks.

**Special JS Features/Syntax**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax used in this benchmark. The code consists of standard JavaScript variables, arrays, and the `JSON.stringify` method.

**Other Alternatives**

For those interested in exploring alternative approaches, consider:

* **Built-in Object Comparison**: Most modern browsers have built-in functions for comparing objects, such as `Object.is()` or `===`. These methods might be faster than using Lodash's `.isEqual`, but they may not provide the same level of customization or robustness.
* **Custom Equality Functions**: Instead of relying on a library like Lodash, developers can create their own custom equality functions using JavaScript. This approach requires more manual effort and might lead to less efficient performance.

Keep in mind that these alternatives are not necessarily better or worse than the approaches used in the benchmark; they simply offer different trade-offs between complexity, customization, and performance.

Related benchmarks:

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

Test on isEqual performance

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

Created: 4 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):