Since the last time I posted browser benchmarks, Google Chrome jumped to version 2, Safari released version 4, Internet Explorer 8 was released, and just yesterday Firefox version 3.5 hit the intertubes. Furthermore, the Dromaeo JavaScript benchmarks have been refined and expanded since then, so it’s high time we update the numbers.
I ran Dromaeo’s recommended test suite on Google Chrome 2.0.172.33, Mozilla Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18783, Apple Safari 4.0 (530.17), and Opera 9.64. The test machine is an Intel Centrino Duo running Windows Vista with no other applications running and as many services stopped as possible.
Internet Explorer could not run all of the tests due to JavaScript errors, but I was able to get 42 of the 49 tests to run by hacking dromaeo’s HTTP parameters.
First, some graphical representations of the results. Since these numbers express average runs per second, bigger bars are better:
Now the raw data (again, bigger numbers mean faster execution):
| Google Chrome | Mozilla Firefox | Internet Explorer | Apple Safari | Opera | |
| 2.0.172.33 | 3.5 | 8.0.6001.18783 | 4.0 (530.17) | 9.64 | |
| 3D Mesh Transformation | 209.85 | 45.94 | 42.32 | 22.52 | 70.67 |
| 3D Raytrace | 154.66 | 57.62 | 28.1 | 60.12 | 31.06 |
| AES Encryption/Decryption | 182.66 | 62.63 | 8.73 | 124.71 | 11.69 |
| Arrays | 86.04 | 238.31 | 36.77 | 87.22 | 21.71 |
| Base64 Encoding and Decoding | 212.29 | 209.15 | 122.11 | 15.27 | |
| Bitwise And | 1571.2 | 398.04 | 46.74 | 2476.2 | 19.77 |
| Code Evaluation | 224.89 | 163.48 | 184.29 | 148.16 | |
| Compute Bits in Byte | 526.19 | 1219.2 | 13.62 | 497.71 | 29.42 |
| Compute Bits in Byte (2) | 351.58 | 366.11 | 8.39 | 385.01 | 31.93 |
| DNA Sequence Alignment | 416.04 | 157.72 | 38.65 | 174.53 | 29.51 |
| DNA Sequence Counting | 193.1 | 107.83 | 20.42 | 128.92 | 10.57 |
| DOM Attributes | 93.45 | 66.32 | 20.66 | 161.28 | 28.27 |
| DOM Attributes (Prototype) | 172.72 | 66.61 | 10.66 | 141.15 | 35.65 |
| DOM Attributes (jQuery) | 132.5 | 78.71 | 22.37 | 177.07 | 63.51 |
| DOM Events (Prototype) | 153.28 | 47.32 | 12.21 | 152.36 | 34.65 |
| DOM Events (jQuery) | 127.11 | 46.04 | 13.25 | 131.3 | 52.47 |
| DOM Modification | 58.22 | 70.44 | 24.71 | 240.42 | 73.3 |
| DOM Modification (Prototype) | 161.54 | 73.27 | 236.08 | 67.85 | |
| DOM Modification (jQuery) | 55.57 | 49.31 | 14.29 | 39.77 | 35.1 |
| DOM Query | 485.69 | 402.13 | 1785.86 | 29.15 | |
| DOM Style (Prototype) | 83.83 | 43.75 | 15.79 | 144.3 | 23.21 |
| DOM Style (jQuery) | 32.95 | 54.01 | 26.02 | 64.85 | 17.59 |
| DOM Traversal | 75.43 | 44.88 | 12.37 | 106.52 | 29.91 |
| DOM Traversal (Prototype) | 87.93 | 61.52 | 10.46 | 155.67 | 25.5 |
| DOM Traversal (jQuery) | 70.89 | 37.29 | 7.35 | 104.02 | 19.57 |
| Date Formatting | 60.23 | 87.09 | 34.94 | 119.91 | 26.03 |
| Date Formatting (2) | 58.84 | 78.73 | 23.79 | 211.02 | 32.31 |
| DeltaBlue Constraint Solving | 201.15 | 14.11 | 6.4 | 242.27 | 14.7 |
| Fannkuch | 438.28 | 145.96 | 18.4 | 515.39 | 23.86 |
| MD5 Hashing | 83.09 | 766.85 | 27.18 | 14.57 | 26.85 |
| N-Body Rotation and Gravity | 19.59 | 194.65 | 16.86 | 3.14 | 24.86 |
| Partial Sum Calculation | 84.54 | 834.06 | 68.67 | 13.68 | 34.52 |
| Prime Number Computation | 77.39 | 173.19 | 4.68 | 221.53 | 16.7 |
| Prime Number Computation (2) | 62.2 | 57.1 | 18.17 | 11.26 | 32.64 |
| RSA Encryption/Decryption | 106.3 | 31.47 | 2.25 | 111.73 | 4.73 |
| RayTracer | 6.14 | 2.21 | 0.82 | 2.7 | 2.29 |
| Recursive Number Calculation | 962.51 | 71.27 | 17.5 | 729.86 | 20.61 |
| Regular Expressions | 249.68 | 27.18 | 127.04 | 7.31 | |
| Richards Benchmarks | 696.06 | 353.99 | 12.06 | 757 | 20.99 |
| Rotating 3D Cube | 35.51 | 107.15 | 7.52 | 32.24 | |
| SHA1 Hashing | 75.43 | 697.92 | 28.13 | 16.22 | 29.23 |
| Script Unpacking | 8.85 | 9.53 | 8.42 | 23.01 | 2.69 |
| Spectral Norm of a Matrix | 46.56 | 646.54 | 21.24 | 10.29 | 32.56 |
| String Parsing and Searching | 8.65 | 3.33 | 1.83 | 22.54 | 3.69 |
| Strings | 161.86 | 97.27 | 263.75 | 76.42 | |
| Tag Cloud Creation | 62.57 | 60.08 | 25.88 | 106.06 | 18.33 |
| Traversing Binary Trees | 87.98 | 40.55 | 10.04 | 150.85 | 24.98 |
| Trigonometric Calculation | 62.33 | 273.44 | 33.19 | 8.3 | 31.45 |
| Validate User Input | 60.67 | 79.09 | 21.53 | 18.4 | 15.79 |
It’s hard to compare these numbers against my previous tests, but it looks like both Firefox and Safari have improved relative to Chrome. The individual differences, though, are dramatic.
Chrome wins in only 15 of the 49 tests now, though by some sizable margins in several cases. Firefox now dominates the Compute Bits in Byte, MD5 Hashing, Partial Sum Calculation, SHA1 Hashing, Spectral Norm of a Matrix, and Trigonometric Calculation. Safari 4 has huge victories in almost all of the DOM tests, Bitwise And, and Strings. Neither Internet Explorer nor Opera won in any category.
If you average these numbers, you get a very rough score for overall JavaScript performance:
Safari: 236.98
Chrome: 196.65
Firefox: 184.09
Opera: 30.84
IE: 19.9
Of course, this is only testing JavaScript performance. There’s a lot more to overall browser performance (page rendering, simultaneous downloading of resources, etc.). Furthermore, these tests don’t exercise the ability of the JavaScript engine to communicate with a server (AJAX requests). But a lot of the interactivity of pages on the web these days is constrained by pure JavaScript performance. Regardless of anything Microsoft says, Internet Explorer 8 is not the fastest browser, or even close to tying for that place. Heck, it can’t even run some of the tests. I inflated IE8’s overall score by not averaging in those zeros, and it still came in last. Kudos to the Safari and Firefox teams for giving Chrome a real contest. It will be interesting to see how Opera improves when version 10 is released.
UPDATE 2009-07-10: Reran tests with Safari 4.02 (530.19.1). No significant differences from 4.0.