Dojo vs JQuery vs MooTools vs Prototype Performance Comparison

As part of my Mootools lecture at Codecamp I showed a brief speed comparison between the most used Javascript Frameworks running in the major browsers. Now as the Mootools team has extended their performance test tool (slickspeed) it is time to revise my benchmarks and extend them over more browser/platforms.

Test results (Lower is better):

Speed Comparsion Graph

*For example FF (XP-NA) is Firefox 2.0.0.12 with no addons (extensions) enabled running under Windows XP

You can check the actual numbers (in ms) and the full browsers information in the table bellow:

  Dojo 1.0.2 JQuery 1.2.3 MooTools 1.2beta2 Prototype 1.6.0.2
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12 - no addons - winxp 128 266 115 259
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12 - winxp 144 290 127 260
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12 - linux 253 438 255 384
Opera 9.26 - winxp 32 136 148 194
Opera 9.26 - linux 110 188 238 364
Internet Explorer 7 - no addons - winxp 263 330 662 1563
Internet Explorer 7 - winxp 264 334 674 1583
Internet Explorer 6 387 600 945 2279
Internet Explorer 6 - linux (wine) 692 978 1310 2616
Safari 3.0.4 Beta 3 - winxp 36 76 84 116
Konqueror - linux 324 450 X X

Conclusions:

  • Safari under Windows XP is really blazing fast
  • Mootools and Prototype JS do not work under Konqueror (KDE’s default browser)
  • Dojo performs great. If we take only these test into consideration it safe to say it is the fastest Javascript Framework
  • Linux browsers are relatively slower against their Windows versions
  • Prototype is insanly slow under Internet Explorer

Disclaimer: This benchmark is somehow subjective because the test results depend on the current OS load and other factors. If you have any corrections or comments on this topic I will gladly review them and will revise the results if needed.

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8 Responses to “Dojo vs JQuery vs MooTools vs Prototype Performance Comparison”

  1. Beth Says:

    Peter,

    Thanks for sharing ;)

    It would be great if YUI and EXT were included as well.

  2. gomera Says:

    Peter,

    I don’t want to sound rude but could you provide us more info about this benchmark ? Because saying that one framework is slower that other without info but some numbers, it is not quite useful. What did you test ? Rendering ? Effects ? Iteration over complex structures ? Environment specifications ? Stuffs like that …

  3. Peter Says:

    @Gomera

    As written in the article i have used http://mootools.net/slickspeed/ for testing. As said on the website this tests speed/validity of the selectors. In other words how many seconds will be needed for the framework to return pointer to the needed dom element(s). Testing environment was standard Windows XP SP2 with all updates

  4. jorge báez Says:

    Peter,

    Its nice to see that figures since my tests thows completely different results… :?

    OTOH, John Resig found out some statistics on selectors usage that should weight each slickspeed
    http://ejohn.org/blog/selectors-that-people-actually-use/

  5. Peter Says:

    @Jorge as I said above the test is a bit subjective for many reasons - one as pointed in the blog post - most used selectors. Other reason is that mootools is still beta and therefore things might change.

    If you like post your figures and chart and I will attach them in the post.

  6. Dharmavirsinh Jhala Says:

    Thanks for sharing this information.
    Can we have detailed screenshot/information of each selector you run through as these scores are sum of each selector and selector usage will be basically matter of choice most of the time.

    FYI scores on my firefox 3 Beta5 were like following: (although all this highly depends on machine configuration)

    Dojo 1.0.2 JQuery 1.2.3 MooTools 1.2beta2 Prototype 1.6.0.2
    62 103 83 179

    I am using jQuery heavily and it seems to be it’s average when it comes to speed but the selectors I am using it’s fastest on them as long as I know.

    http://blogs.digitss.com/category/javascript/

  7. Nathan Says:

    Thanks for this article. I don’t have a windows machine but I’ve suspected for a while that Prototype might be easier for me than it is for the machine it’s running on.

  8. Web industry hawker-featured web2.0 Evaluating JavaScript Frameworks: Best Cross-section of Links | Says:

    [...] Another Speed Test Mostly JQuery wins: http://blog.creonfx.com/javascript/dojo-vs-jquery-vs-mootools-vs-prototype-performance-comparison [...]

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