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)

Too 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:

• AWS EC2 - m5.large 2 vCPU
• Processor: Intel Xeon 3.1Ghz
• Memory: 8 GiB
• OS: Ubuntu 20.04
• Docker Base Image: ubuntu:20.04

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 nohup:

nohup docker run drujensen/fib:latest > results.txt 2>&1 &

Results

Last benchmark was ran on January 18, 2022

Natively compiled, statically typed

Language	Total	Compile	Time, s	Run	Time, s	Ext
C	6.865	gcc -O3 -o fib fib.c	0.058	./fib	6.807	c
Fortran	6.893	gfortran -O3 -o fib fib.f03	0.119	./fib	6.774	f03
C++	6.954	g++ -O3 -o fib fib.cpp	0.126	./fib	6.828	cpp
Cython	7.114	cython -3 --embed -o fib.pyx.c fib.pyx && gcc -O3 -o fib fib.pyx.c $(pkg-config --cflags --libs python)	0.297	./fib	6.817	pyx
Nim	7.337	nim c -d:release fib.nim	0.920	./fib	6.416	nim
Assembly	7.401	gcc -no-pie -O3 -o fib fib.s	0.025	./fib	7.376	s
Ada	7.645	gnat make -O3 -gnatp -o fib fib.adb	0.213	./fib	7.433	adb
Rust	7.652	rustc -C opt-level=3 fib.rs	0.638	./fib	7.014	rs
Pascal	8.845	fpc -O3 -Si ./fib.pas	0.078	./fib	8.766	pas
Pony	9.117	ponyc -s -b fib -p ./fib.pony	1.038	./fib	8.079	pony
D	9.481	ldc2 -O3 -release -flto=full -of=fib fib.d	0.612	./fib	8.869	d
Swift	10.568	swiftc -O -g fib.swift	0.474	./fib	10.094	swift
OCaml	10.729	ocamlopt -O3 -o fib fib.ml	0.294	./fib	10.435	ml
V	10.752	v -prod -o fib fib.v	4.352	./fib	6.399	v
Go	12.486	go build fib.go	0.600	./fib	11.885	go
Haskell	12.544	rm ./fib.o && ghc -O3 -o fib fib.hs	0.001	./fib	12.543	hs
Crystal	17.900	crystal build --release fib.cr	4.940	./fib	12.960	cr
Lisp	17.996	sbcl --load fib.lisp	1.704	./fib	16.293	lisp
Dart Compiled	30.942	dart compile exe -o fib ./fib.dart	5.058	./fib	25.884	dartc
Cobol	4380.728	cobc -x -O3 -o fib ./fib.cbl	0.133	./fib	4380.596	cbl

VM compiled bytecode, statically typed

Language	Total	Compile	Time, s	Run	Time, s	Ext
Scala	9.047	scalac Fib.scala	0.942	scala Fib	8.104	scala
Java	10.391	javac Fib.java	0.894	java Fib	9.497	java
Kotlin	11.721	kotlinc Fib.kt	2.097	java FibKt	9.624	kt
C# (Mono)	16.107	mcs Fib.cs	0.491	mono Fib.exe	15.616	mono
C#	16.218	dotnet build -c Release -o ./bin	2.162	dotnet ./bin/fib.dll	14.056	cs
Erlang	28.868	erlc +native +'{hipe,[o3]}' fib.erl	0.500	erl -noinput -noshell -s fib	28.368	erl

VM compiled before execution, mixed/dynamically typed

Language	Time, s	Run	Ext
Dart	11.286	dart fib.dart	dart
Julia	11.318	julia -O3 fib.jl	jl
Lua Jit	16.382	luajit fib.lua	luajit
Clojure	23.448	clojure -M fib.cljc	cljc
Elixir	28.604	ERL_COMPILER_OPTIONS='[native,{hipe, [o3]}]' elixir Fib.exs	exs
Node	30.232	node fib.js	js
Python3 (PyPy)	37.827	pypy3 fib.py	pypy
Ruby (jit)	51.793	ruby --jit fib.rb	rbjit

Interpreted, dynamically typed

Language	Time, s	Run	Ext
Scheme	66.668	guile fib.scm	scm
Php	118.468	php fib.php	php
Lua	169.710	lua fib.lua	lua
Ruby	223.653	ruby fib.rb	rb
Janet	292.366	janet ./fib.janet	janet
Python	507.845	python fib.py	py
Python3	527.247	python3 fib.py	py3
Perl	1085.181	perl fib.pl	pl
Tcl	1580.804	tclsh fib.tcl	tcl
R	2413.682	R -f fib.r	r
Raku	2841.391	rakudo fib.raku	raku
Escript	3448.282	escript fib.es	es

Versions

All compilers are installed using apt or asdf on Ubuntu 20.04 docker image.

language	version
ada	9.3.0
assembly	9.3.0
bash	5.0.0
crystal	1.3.0
clojure	1.10.3.1040
cython	0.29.26
dart	2.15.1
dotnet-core	6.0.101
elixir	1.12.0
elm	0.19.1
erlang	24.2
fortran	9.3.0
g++	9.3.0
gcc	9.3.0
golang	1.17.5
guile	3.0.7
haskell	9.2.1
janet	1.19.2
java	openjdk-17
julia	1.7.1
K	3.6
kotlin	1.6.10
ldc2	1.2.4
lua	5.4.3
luaJIT	2.1.0
mono	6.8.0
nim	1.6.2
nodejs	17.3.0
ocaml	4.11.1
pascal	3.0.4
perl	5.34.0
php	8.1.1
pony	0.38.1
powershell	v7.0.0
python	3.10.1
pypy	7.3.7
qb64	1.5
R	4.1.2
rakudo	2021.12
ruby	3.1.0
rust	1.57.0
sbcl	2.11.1
scala	3.1.0
swift	5.5.2
tcl	8.6.10
v	0.2.2