# Ways to compare the performance of different Ruby implementations

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 11, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383 "2010-05-11T05:12:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Carter_C)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383/1 "2010-05-11T05:12:01Z")

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Greetings,

I have recently become interested in Ruby and I was curious what the  
correct approach was in measuring the performance of the various VM  
against one another. I.e. YARV, JRuby, MRI etc. What kind of  
applications or benchmarks are good for this purpose.

Thanks in advance,

Carter.

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**Author:** ![Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Carter_C)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 11:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383/2 "2010-05-12T11:42:27Z")

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The best benchmark is your own application. Synthetic benchmarks are  
good at one thing: giving synthetic perf comparisons.

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**Author:** ![Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Carter_C)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383/3 "2010-05-12T17:53:06Z")

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Thanks for the reply. I guess perhaps my original post might not have  
been too clear. I am actually not interested in running applications  
per se but in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each of  
the respective platforms. I am trying to figure out what runs  
fast/slow on each platform and what each of them are good at  
performance wise. In terms of techniques I am curious how to proceed.

Thank in advance,

Carter.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Carter_C)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383/4 "2010-05-12T19:23:45Z")

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Carter C. wrote:

> Thanks for the reply. I guess perhaps my original post might not have  
> been too clear. I am actually not interested in running applications  
> per se but in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each of  
> the respective platforms. I am trying to figure out what runs  
> fast/slow on each platform and what each of them are good at  
> performance wise. In terms of techniques I am curious how to proceed.

There’s the ruby benchmark suite:

> **[GitHub - acangiano/ruby-benchmark-suite: A set of Ruby benchmarks for testing...](https://github.com/acangiano/ruby-benchmark-suite)**
>
> A set of Ruby benchmarks for testing Ruby implementations. - GitHub - acangiano/ruby-benchmark-suite: A set of Ruby benchmarks for testing Ruby implementations.

I believe Antonio is about to do another blog post on the various  
implementations on various platforms.

GL!  
-rp

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**Author:** ![Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Carter_C)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 2:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383/5 "2010-05-13T02:58:10Z")

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Thanks Roger. I will check it out.

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**Author:** ![Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Carter_C)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383/6 "2010-05-13T03:55:32Z")

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On 05/13/2010 12:51 AM, Carter C. wrote:

> … I am actually not interested in running applications  
> per se but in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each of  
> the respective platforms. I am trying to figure out what runs  
> fast/slow on each platform and what each of them are good at  
> performance wise. In terms of techniques I am curious how to proceed.

I suggest you look at, and understand the qualitative differences  
between the implementations before getting into benchmarking.

ruby 1.8 only supports green threads  
ruby 1.9 supports native threads with a GIL Global Interpreter Lock  
jruby supports native threads

There are obviously other differences and other implementations.

Edward

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**Author:** ![Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Carter_C)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 9:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383/7 "2010-05-13T09:30:20Z")

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I have been looking at the source code. Are there other ways of  
getting into the differences between the implementations?

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 9:54 AM, Edward Middleton

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**Author:** ![Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Carter\_C](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Carter_C)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 10:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ways-to-compare-the-performance-of-different-ruby-implementations/188383/8 "2010-05-14T10:00:15Z")

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Ask the implementers? 🙂