README.md

Recursive Fibonacci Benchmark using top languages on Github

Top 10: JavaScript, Python, Java, TypeScript, C#, Php, C++, C, Shell, Ruby reference

Others: Go, Rust, Swift, Crystal, Pony, Ada, Pascal, Fortran, Kotlin, Clojure, Scala, Mono, R, Dart, Julia, D, Nim, Cython, Python3, PyPy, Ruby jit, OCaml, Lisp, Haskell, Erlang, Elixir, Escript, Dart, Scheme, Lua, Perl, Perl6, Bash, Emoji

The code performs a recursive fibonacci to the 47th position with the result of 2,971,215,073.

Fibonacci can be written many different ways. The goal of this project is to compare how each language handles the exact same code.

Here is the Ruby version:

def fib(n)
  return n if n <= 1
  fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
end

puts fib(47)

Here is the Crystal version:

def fib(n)
  return n if n <= 1
  fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
end

puts fib(47_u64)

To keep a level playing field, only common "release" flags are used in the compilation step. This allows for compiler optimizations like inlining and constant propogation but removes anything considered dangerous i.e. bypassing out of bounds checks.

All tests are run on:

• Hetzner CCX23 - 4 vCPU
• Processor: Intel Xeon 3.1Ghz
• Memory: 16 GiB
• OS: Ubuntu 24.04
• Docker Base Image: ubuntu:24.04

How to run them

You can run the tests using Docker: docker run -it drujensen/fib

By default, it will compile and run all languages 5 times. Totals are calculated by adding the average compile and run times.

To only run a subset of the languages, provide a list of extensions and optionally the count:

docker run -it drujensen/fib ./run.sh s,c,cpp,go,rs,swift 5

To run in the background using screen:

screen
docker run drujensen/fib > results.txt 2>&1

• Detach from the session by pressing Ctrl+A followed by D.
• You can reattach to the session later with:

screen -r

NOTE: Please see issues with benchmarks like this. Its original goal was to compare at a macro level how much faster Crystal is to Ruby. Any language faster than Assembly is performing unrolling type optimizations. Modern languages like Go, Swift and Crystal have bounds checking which have safety built-in, but also have a cost associated with runtime performance.

Results

Last benchmark was ran on December 05, 2024

Natively compiled, statically typed

Language	RunTime	Run	CompileTime	Compile	Ext
C	4.723	./fib	0.112	gcc -O3 -o fib fib.c	c
C++	4.750	./fib	0.139	g++ -O3 -o fib fib.cpp	cpp
V	4.718	./fib	4.450	v -prod -o fib fib.v	v
Fortran	6.204	./fib	0.130	gfortran -O3 -o fib fib.f03	f03
Ada	6.591	./fib	0.220	gnat make -O3 -gnatp -o fib fib.adb	adb
Rust	7.750	./fib	0.358	rustc -C opt-level=3 fib.rs	rs
Mojo	8.706	./fib	0.241	mojo build fib.mojo	mojo
Odin	8.751	./fib	0.087	odin build fib.odin -file -0:speed	odin
Zig	9.299	./fib	6.882	zig build-exe -OReleaseFast ./fib.zig	zig
Assembly	9.342	./fib	0.025	gcc -no-pie -O3 -o fib fib.s	s
Pony	10.226	./fib	0.879	ponyc -s -b fib -p ./fib.pony	pony
Pascal	10.419	./fib	0.041	fpc -O3 -Si ./fib.pas	pas
OCaml	15.831	./fib	0.187	ocamlopt -O3 -o fib fib.ml	ml
Swift	17.390	./fib	1.411	swiftc -O fib.swift	swift
Crystal	17.420	./fib	3.106	crystal build --release fib.cr	cr
Go	17.842	./fib	1.107	go build fib.go	go
D	17.851	./fib	0.342	dmd -release -of=fib fib.d	d
Haskell	18.094	./fib	0.001	rm ./fib.o && ghc -O3 -o fib fib.hs	hs
Lisp	24.747	./fib	0.979	sbcl --load fib.lisp	lisp
Dart Compiled	30.149	./fib	1.558	dart compile exe -o fib ./fib.dart	dartc
Cobol	4380.596	./fib	0.133	cobc -x -O3 -o fib ./fib.cbl	cbl

VM compiled bytecode, statically typed

Language	RunTime	Run	CompileTime	Compile	Ext
C#	10.744	dotnet ./bin/fib.dll	2.015	dotnet build -c Release -o ./bin	cs
Java	12.307	java Fib	0.733	javac Fib.java	java
Kotlin	12.212	java FibKt	4.074	kotlinc Fib.kt	kt
Scala	13.153	scala Fib	2.682	scalac Fib.scala	scala
Erlang	27.976	erl -noinput -noshell -s fib	0.402	erlc +native +'{hipe,[o3]}' fib.erl	erl
Groovy	68.604	groovy Fib	1.519	groovyc Fib.groovy	groovy

VM compiled before execution, mixed/dynamically typed

Language	RunTime	Run	Ext
Clojure	17.815	clojure -M fib.cljc	cljc
Julia	18.000	julia -O3 fib.jl	jl
Bun	21.312	bun fib.js	bun
Dart	29.984	dart fib.dart	dart
Node	34.736	node fib.js	js
Elixir	35.243	ERL_COMPILER_OPTIONS='[native,{hipe, [o3]}]' elixir Fib.exs	exs
Lua Jit	37.837	luajit fib.lua	luajit
Python (PyPy)	54.078	pypy fib.py	pypy
Ruby (jit)	81.454	ruby --jit fib.rb	rbjit

Interpreted, dynamically typed

Language	RunTime	Run	Ext
Escript	28.380	escript fib.es	es
Scheme	102.887	guile fib.scm	scm
Php	157.312	php fib.php	php
Lua	203.702	lua fib.lua	lua
Ruby	393.625	ruby fib.rb	rb
Python	423.427	python fib.py	py
Janet	479.663	janet ./fib.janet	janet
Perl	1490.416	perl fib.pl	pl
Raku	1672.015	rakudo fib.raku	raku
Tcl	2230.883	tclsh fib.tcl	tcl
R	2575.249	R -f fib.r	r

Versions

All compilers are installed using apt or asdf on Ubuntu 24.04 docker image:

Language	Version
ada	13.2.0
assembly	13.2.0
bash	5.2.21
bun	1.1.38
crystal	1.14.0
clojure	1.12.0.1488
dart	3.5.4
dmd	2.109.1
dotnet	9.0.101
elixir	1.17.3
elm	0.19.1
erlang	27.1.2
fortran	13.2.0
g++	13.2.0
gcc	13.2.0
gnucobol	3.2.0
golang	1.23.2
groovy	4.0.24
guile	3.0.10
haskell	9.8.3
janet	1.36.0
java	openjdk-23
julia	1.11.1
K	3.6
kotlin	2.1.0
ldc	1.39.0
lua	5.4.7
luajit	2.1.1
mojo	24.5.0
nim	2.2.0
nodejs	23.3.0
ocaml	5.2.1
odin	dev-2024-11
pascal	3.2.2
perl	5.40.0
php	8.4.1
pony	0.58.7
powershell-core	7.4.6
python	3.12.0
pypy	7.3.17
r	4.4.2
rakudo	2024.10
ruby	3.3.6
rust	1.83.0
sbcl	2.4.11
scala	3.3.4
swift	6.0.2
tcl	9.0.0
v	0.4.8
zig	0.13.0