Chrome JavaScript Performance Comparison

So like the little web geek that I am, I downloaded Google Chrome the second it was available. I haven't been playing with it too long, but I am impressed so far.

The first thing I looked at was JavaScript performance. I used this site which runs some common JavaScript tasks over and over.

The results:

Internet Explorer 8 (Beta 2)

FireFox 3

Chrome

So as you can see, Google Chrome is a lot faster than the other browsers I tested, at least as far as JavaScript performance. It's probably because there are no plug-ins or anything on top of Chrome, but it sure feels a whole lot faster. It's really smooth and doesn't have that frozen window problem that FireFox and IE both have.

So far I'm pretty excited about Chrome. I love FireFox, but Chrome implements some amazing ideas. Let's hope they catch on with the other browsers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 6:43 am and is filed under General Boringness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Chrome JavaScript Performance Comparison”

1. Not to say this isn’t interesting (it is), but it could be a bit misleading. There is the whole “micro benchmarking” thing that applies to dynamic languages (and VMs) that says that because of things like optimization techniques in such environments, it’s hard to accurately measure things at this level. I’m sure it’s old hat, but this article describes the problem well (albeit in a slightly arrogant, “leave it to us smart folks” kind of way).

   http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jtp02225.html

   All of that said, there are some really neat ideas going on here that, for some reason, have never been applied to a browser even though they’ve existed since I was in diapers (i.e. multiprocess architecture for isolation and security). Good stuff.

   esammer
   September 2nd, 2008

2. [...] Null-Logic » Chrome JavaScript Performance Comparison [...]

   H3RALD
   September 2nd, 2008

3. Hello,

   Google Chrome is better in pure Javascript performance. In fact, having the webkit render machine (which is the fastest I know) and the new Javascript enginge “V8″ it might be the fastest browser around for any kind of web application. Have a look at http://goit-postal.blogspot.com/2008/09/chrome-first-little-test-with-highly.html for more details.

   Greetings, Georgi

   Georgi
   September 2nd, 2008

4. You can also try firefox’s nightly build, and set javascript.options.jit.content = true, do another benchmark for tracemonkey

   noname
   September 2nd, 2008

5. [...] Chrome is smoking fast in javascript performance and feels pretty zippy just about everywhere else (launching, opening tabs, etc) [...]

   » Browser Wars 2: Electric Boogaloo :: Joshua Blount is a web developer, designer, and all around good guy in Lake County, Florida ::
   September 2nd, 2008

6. I tried the above tests with IE7 instead of IE8b1. IE7 was waaaay slower. But FF3 and Chrome were very similar with FF3 a little bit faster.

   Thiago Souza
   September 3rd, 2008

7. Essamer makes a good point. I ran Mozilla’s JS test suite on it, which is composed of some real algorithms, and Chrome rules: http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/09/02/google-chrome-beta-released-for-windows/

   Chip Camden
   September 9th, 2008