Benchmark: Lodash cloneDeep vs structuredClone vs JSON Parse vs JSON indirect parse vs in-house deepcopy

HTML Preparation code:

<script src='https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.5/lodash.min.js'></script>

Script Preparation code:

var MyObject = {
  description: 'Creates a deep copy of source, which should be an object or an array.',
  myNumber: 123456789,
  myBoolean: true,
  jayson: {
    stringify: 'JSON.stringify() method converts a JavaScript value to a JSON string....',
    parse: 'JSON.parse() method parses a JSON string...'
  }
};

var myCopy = null;
var s = '';
function deepcopy(o) {
    if (o instanceof Array) {
      return Array.from(o, deepcopy)
    }
    const c = Object.assign({}, o)
    for (const k of Object.keys(o)) {
      if (typeof o[k] === 'object' && o[k]) {
        c[k] = deepcopy(o[k])
      }
    }
    return c
  }

Tests:

Lodash cloneDeep
myCopy = _.cloneDeep(MyObject);
Native structuredClone
myCopy = structuredClone(MyObject);
JSON Parse
myCopy = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(MyObject));
Indirect JSON Parse
s = JSON.stringify(MyObject); myCopy = JSON.parse(s);
In-house deepcopy
myCopy = deepcopy(MyObject);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Lodash cloneDeep
Native structuredClone
JSON Parse
Indirect JSON Parse
In-house deepcopy

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 123 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Lodash cloneDeep	597783.7 Ops/sec
Native structuredClone	81082.8 Ops/sec
JSON Parse	1189524.9 Ops/sec
Indirect JSON Parse	1098014.4 Ops/sec
In-house deepcopy	1701146.5 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 benchmark and explain what's being tested, compared options, pros and cons of each approach, and other considerations.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark tests four approaches to create a deep copy of an object: `Lodash cloneDeep`, `Native structuredClone`, `JSON Parse`, and `Indirect JSON Parse`. The benchmark also includes an in-house `deepcopy` implementation for comparison.

**Options Compared**

1. **Lodash cloneDeep**: Uses the `_.cloneDeep` function from Lodash, a popular JavaScript utility library.
2. **Native structuredClone**: Uses the `structuredClone` function introduced in ECMAScript 2020, which is a built-in function in modern browsers and Node.js environments.
3. **JSON Parse**: Uses the `JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(obj))` idiom to create a deep copy of an object. This method can lead to issues with cyclic references.
4. **Indirect JSON Parse**: A variation of the above approach, where the original object is stringified first and then parsed again.

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

1. **Lodash cloneDeep**:
	* Pros: Easy to use, well-tested, and widely supported.
	* Cons: Requires an additional library (Lodash), which can add overhead.
2. **Native structuredClone**:
	* Pros: Built-in function, fast, and efficient.
	* Cons: Limited support in older browsers and environments, requires ECMAScript 2020 or later.
3. **JSON Parse**:
	* Pros: Simple to implement, widely supported.
	* Cons: Can lead to issues with cyclic references, slower than other methods.
4. **Indirect JSON Parse**:
	* Pros: Avoids cyclic reference issues, slightly faster than `JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(obj))`.
	* Cons: Requires an extra step (stringification), which can add overhead.

**Other Considerations**

* Cyclic References: All methods except `structuredClone` can lead to issues with cyclic references. `Lodash cloneDeep` and the in-house `deepcopy` implementation are designed to handle this case, but `JSON Parse` may still fail if the object contains a reference to itself.
* Performance: `Native structuredClone` is generally faster than the other methods, followed by `Lodash cloneDeep`. The in-house `deepcopy` implementation is optimized for performance and can be competitive with `structuredClone`.

**Library Usage**

The benchmark uses Lodash version 4.17.5, which provides the `_.cloneDeep` function.

**Special JS Feature or Syntax**

No special JavaScript features or syntax are used in this benchmark.

In conclusion, the benchmark tests four approaches to create a deep copy of an object, each with its pros and cons. `Native structuredClone` is the fastest and most efficient option, but requires support for ECMAScript 2020 or later. `Lodash cloneDeep` is a popular alternative, but requires an additional library. The other two methods have limitations and potential issues, making them less suitable for production use.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash cloneDeep vs structuredClone vs JSON Parse vs JSON indirect parse vs in-house deepcopy (version: 0)

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/structuredClone

Comparing performance of: Lodash cloneDeep vs Native structuredClone vs JSON Parse vs Indirect JSON Parse vs In-house deepcopy

Created: 3 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Lodash cloneDeep

Native structuredClone

JSON Parse

Indirect JSON Parse

In-house deepcopy

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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