Benchmark: JS: append vs appendChild s

HTML Preparation code:

<div id="container"></div>

Script Preparation code:

var container = document.getElementById("container");
var paragraph = document.createElement("p");
var paragraph2 = document.createElement("p");

Tests:

append
container.append(paragraph, paragraph2);
appendChild
container.appendChild(paragraph); container.appendChild(paragraph2);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
append
appendChild

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/103.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 103 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
append	751694.8 Ops/sec
appendChild	1026301.3 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

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

**Benchmark Definition**

The test creates two paragraphs (`<p>` elements) and appends them to a container element using two different methods: `append` and `appendChild`. The script preparation code sets up the HTML structure, including creating the container and paragraph elements. The benchmark definition specifies the method to be tested (either `append` or `appendChild`) followed by the arguments to pass to the method.

**Options Compared**

Two options are compared:

1. **append**: This method adds one or more elements to the end of an existing element.
2. **appendChild**: This method appends a single element to the end of another element.

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

**Append Method:**

Pros:

* Generally faster, as it only needs to update the end index of the container element.
* May be more intuitive for some developers, as it's closer to how strings are concatenated in JavaScript.

Cons:

* Can lead to unexpected behavior if not used carefully, especially when dealing with large datasets or complex HTML structures.
* May not be suitable for situations where multiple elements need to be appended to different locations within the container.

**AppendChild Method:**

Pros:

* More explicit and predictable behavior, as it clearly separates the element being appended from its destination.
* Suitable for most use cases, including appending multiple elements to different locations within a container.

Cons:

* Generally slower, as it requires updating both the source and destination indices of the container element.
* May require more code to set up the append operation correctly.

**Library Used**

In this benchmark, no specific library is used beyond the standard DOM APIs (`document.createElement`, `document.getElementById`, etc.). However, if you're using a library like jQuery, you might use its `.append()` method, which provides additional functionality and convenience features.

**Special JS Features/Syntax**

This benchmark does not explicitly test any special JavaScript features or syntax. However, it's worth noting that some browsers may optimize certain methods or behave differently in specific edge cases (e.g., handling NaN values or out-of-bounds indexing).

**Other Alternatives**

If you're interested in exploring alternative approaches to appending elements, consider the following:

* Using `insertAdjacentHTML()` method: This method inserts HTML content at a specified position relative to an element. It's often faster than using `appendChild` and provides more flexibility.
* Using a library like jQuery: While not part of the benchmark, jQuery's `.append()` method can provide additional features and convenience functions that might impact performance.

Keep in mind that these alternatives may have trade-offs in terms of compatibility, complexity, or performance. Always consider your specific use case and requirements when choosing an approach.

Related benchmarks:

JS: append vs appendChild s (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: append vs appendChild

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

append

appendChild

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):