Benchmark: JSON.stringify&parse vs structuredClone

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;

Tests:

JSON.stringify&parse
myCopy = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(MyObject));
Native structuredClone
myCopy = structuredClone(MyObject);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
JSON.stringify&parse
Native structuredClone

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 17_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) CriOS/120.0.6099.119 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1

Browser/OS: Chrome Mobile iOS 120 on iOS 17.2

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
JSON.stringify&parse	1543453.0 Ops/sec
Native structuredClone	876396.8 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**Overview of the Benchmark**

The provided JSON represents a JavaScript microbenchmarking test case on MeasureThat.net. The benchmark compares the performance of two approaches for cloning an object: `JSON.stringify()` and `parse()` combination versus the native `structuredClone()` function.

**What is being tested?**

Two individual test cases are compared:

1. **JSON.stringify&parse**: This approach involves converting the original object to a JSON string using `JSON.stringify()`, parsing the resulting string back into an object using `JSON.parse()`, and then assigning the result to a new variable (`myCopy`).
2. **Native structuredClone**: This approach uses the native `structuredClone()` function, which is available in modern browsers, to create a deep copy of the original object.

**Options compared**

The benchmark compares the performance of these two approaches on an object with nested properties (`MyObject`). The object contains:

* An integer property (`myNumber`)
* A boolean property (`myBoolean`)
* Another object with string properties (`jayson`)

**Pros and Cons of each approach:**

1. **JSON.stringify&parse**:
	* Pros:
		+ Widely supported in older browsers (IE 11+, Firefox 4+, Safari 5.1+, Chrome 10+)
	* Cons:
		+ Can be slower due to the overhead of string conversion and parsing
		+ May not preserve certain types of data (e.g., Date, RegExp) correctly
2. **Native structuredClone**:
	* Pros:
		+ Generally faster than `JSON.stringify&parse`
		+ More reliable for preserving complex data structures and types
	* Cons:
		+ Requires modern browsers that support the `structuredClone()` function (Chrome 120+, Firefox 88+, Safari 15.2+)

**Library and its purpose**

The benchmark uses the Lodash library, which is a utility library for functional programming in JavaScript. In this case, it provides the `structuredClone()` function.

**Special JS feature or syntax**

No special features or syntax are mentioned in the benchmark. However, note that modern browsers support advanced features like structured cloning, which can be useful for performance-critical code.

**Other alternatives**

If you need to clone objects without using `JSON.stringify&parse` or `structuredClone()`, other alternatives include:

* Using a library like Lodash's `cloneDeep()` function
* Implementing your own deep copying function using recursion and/or iteration
* Utilizing browser-specific APIs, such as the WebAssembly binary format for cloning objects

Keep in mind that each approach has its trade-offs and may have different performance characteristics depending on the specific use case.

Related benchmarks:

JSON.stringify&parse vs structuredClone (version: 0)

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

Comparing performance of: JSON.stringify&parse vs Native structuredClone

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

JSON.stringify&parse

Native structuredClone

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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