Benchmark: Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for Array of Objects with Nesting

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/lodash@4.17.4/lodash.min.js"></script>

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = [{
    type: 'cat',
    name: 'Sarah',
    skills: ['meowing', 'eating', 'sleeping']
}, {
    type: 'dog',
    name: 'Felipe',
    skills: ['barking', 'eating', 'sleeping']
}, {
    type: 'bird',
    name: 'Maryanne',
    skills: ['tweeting', 'eating', 'sleeping']
}, ];
window.bar = [{
    type: 'cat',
    name: 'Sarah',
    skills: ['meowing', 'eating', 'sleeping']
}, {
    type: 'dog',
    name: 'Felipe',
    skills: ['barking', 'eating', 'sleeping']
}, {
    type: 'bird',
    name: 'Maryanne',
    skills: ['tweeting', 'eating', 'sleeping']
}, ];

Tests:

_.isEqual
_.isEqual(window.foo, window.bar)
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(window.foo) === JSON.stringify(window.bar);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
_.isEqual
JSON.stringify

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/133.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 133 on Linux

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	1025920.4 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	1538570.6 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided JSON benchmark and explain what's being tested.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark is designed to compare the performance of two approaches:

1. Using Lodash (`_.isEqual` function) for equality comparison between two arrays of objects.
2. Using `JSON.stringify` for equality comparison between two arrays of objects.

**Options Being Compared**

We have two options being compared:

**Option 1: Lodash (`_.isEqual` function)**

* Library: Lodash (a popular JavaScript utility library)
* Purpose: Provides a comprehensive set of functions for working with arrays, objects, and more. In this case, it's used to compare the equality of two arrays.
* Pros:
	+ Widely adopted and well-maintained library
	+ Supports various comparison scenarios, including deep object comparisons
	+ Often used in production code due to its popularity
* Cons:
	+ Additional dependency on Lodash (potentially larger bundle size)
	+ May introduce overhead due to the use of a utility library

**Option 2: `JSON.stringify`**

* Library: Built-in JavaScript function (`JSON.stringify`)
* Purpose: Converts an object or array into a JSON string, which can be used for equality comparison.
* Pros:
	+ No additional dependency on external libraries
	+ Fast and lightweight (typically around 1-2 kilobytes)
	+ Widely supported across browsers and platforms
* Cons:
	+ May not work well with complex data structures or nested objects
	+ Can lead to issues with deep object comparisons

**Additional Considerations**

The benchmark also includes the use of two arrays, `window.foo` and `window.bar`, which contain similar data. This helps to isolate the comparison logic from other factors that might influence performance.

**Library: Lodash**

Lodash is a popular JavaScript utility library that provides a wide range of functions for working with arrays, objects, and more. In this benchmark, it's used to compare the equality of two arrays using the `_.isEqual` function. Other notable features of Lodash include:

* Array manipulation functions (e.g., `map`, `filter`, `reduce`)
* Object manipulation functions (e.g., `clone`, `merge`, `assign`)
* String manipulation functions (e.g., `truncate`, `escapeRegExp`, `escapeHTML`)

**JavaScript Features/ Syntax**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax being tested in this benchmark. The code relies on standard JavaScript features and libraries, making it accessible to a wide range of developers.

**Alternatives**

If you need to compare the performance of equality comparison approaches, you may consider using other libraries or implementations, such as:

* Immer.js: A library for predictable, immutable data structures
* Fast Json: A lightweight JSON parsing library
* Slick-json: A fast and efficient JSON stringification library

Keep in mind that the choice of implementation ultimately depends on your specific use case, performance requirements, and personal preferences.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for Array of Objects with Nesting (version: 0)

Test on isEqual performance

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

_.isEqual

JSON.stringify

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):