Benchmark: Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for Shallow Object

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = {
    "text": "26 698",
    "type": "multilineStyledText",
    "value": 0,
    "className": "",
    "calculated": false,
    "nonEditable": false,
    "data": [
        {
            "type": "p",
            "children": [
                {
                    "text": "26 698"
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "formula": ""
}
window.bar = {
    "text": "26 698",
    "type": "multilineStyledText",
    "value": 0,
    "className": "",
    "calculated": false,
    "nonEditable": false,
    "data": [
        {
            "type": "p",
            "children": [
                {
                    "text": "26 698"
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "formula": ""
}

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 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	384507.7 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	743093.2 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 is being tested.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark tests two approaches for comparing equality between two objects: using Lodash's `isEqual` function and using the `JSON.stringify` method. The test cases are designed to compare shallow objects, which means they only check if the values of the properties are equal, without recursively checking nested objects.

**Options Being Compared**

The two options being compared are:

1. **Lodash's `isEqual` function**: This is a utility function from the Lodash library that compares two values for equality. It can handle various data types, including arrays and objects.
2. **`JSON.stringify` method**: This method converts an object to a JSON string, which can then be compared with another JSON string using the `===` operator.

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

1. **Lodash's `isEqual` function**:
	* Pros: Efficient for large datasets, handles nested objects and arrays, and is widely used in JavaScript development.
	* Cons: Requires an external library (Lodash), may have additional overhead due to the need to load the library.
2. **`JSON.stringify` method**:
	* Pros: No external dependencies required, fast and lightweight, and well-supported by most browsers.
	* Cons: May not work correctly with certain data types or nested structures, and can be slower for very large datasets.

**Library Used**

The `isEqual` function is implemented in the Lodash library. Lodash is a popular JavaScript utility library that provides a wide range of functions for tasks such as array manipulation, object transformation, and more.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

There are no special JS features or syntax used in this benchmark. The code only uses standard JavaScript syntax and built-in methods like `JSON.stringify`.

**Other Alternatives**

If you need to compare equality between objects without using Lodash's `isEqual` function, you could use other libraries such as:

* **Underscore.js**: Similar to Lodash, but with a slightly different API.
* **Moment.js**: While not specifically designed for object comparison, Moment.js has a method called `isEqual()` that can be used for this purpose.

Alternatively, if you want to avoid using external libraries altogether, you could implement your own object comparison function using standard JavaScript methods like `for...in` loops and conditional statements.

**Benchmark Preparation Code Explanation**

The `Html Preparation Code` includes a script tag that loads the Lodash library, which is required for the `isEqual` function. The `Script Preparation Code` defines two objects, `foo` and `bar`, which are used as input for the benchmark. These objects have similar structures but with different values, making them suitable for comparing equality.

The `Benchmark Definition` json provides the actual benchmark code, which calls the `isEqual` function or uses the `JSON.stringify` method to compare the two objects.

**Latest Benchmark Result**

The latest benchmark result shows that the `JSON.stringify` method is faster than Lodash's `isEqual` function, with an execution rate of 209444 executions per second compared to 250985 executions per second for `_.isEqual`. However, this result may vary depending on the specific use case and environment.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for Shallow Object (version: 0)

Test on isEqual performance

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

Created: 2 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):