Benchmark: Math.random vs crypto.getRandomValues (2) vs RandomUUID

Script Preparation code:

var array = new Uint32Array(1)

Tests:

Math.random
`${Math.random() + Date.now()}`
crypto.randomUUID
crypto.randomUUID()
crypto.getRandomValues
crypto.getRandomValues(array)

Historical Performance Data aggregated from 10 community runs

Desktop Results:

Chrome 10 runs

Math.random

22.3M/s

crypto.getRandomValues

1.4M/s

crypto.randomUUID

786K/s

Fastest: Math.random (28.3x faster)

View exact numbers

✓ Math.random: 22,267,698 ops/sec
• crypto.getRandomValues: 1,352,904 ops/sec
• crypto.randomUUID: 785,697 ops/sec

Results show median performance across all community submissions. Run this benchmark yourself to verify on your device.

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Math.random
crypto.randomUUID
crypto.getRandomValues

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 5 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/145.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 145 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Math.random

11.2M/s

crypto.getRandomValues

2.0M/s

crypto.randomUUID

697K/s

View exact numbers

Test name	Executions per second
✓ Math.random	11,207,073 Ops/sec
crypto.getRandomValues	2,027,594 Ops/sec
crypto.randomUUID	696,955 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 benchmark and explain what is being tested.

**Overview**

The benchmark is comparing three different methods to generate random values in JavaScript:

1. `Math.random()`
2. `crypto.getRandomValues()`
3. `crypto.randomUUID()`

Each test case uses a unique way to measure the performance of these methods.

**Options Compared**

Here's a brief overview of each option and their pros and cons:

* **`Math.random()`**: This method generates a random number between 0 (inclusive) and 1 (exclusive). It's a simple but not very secure or suitable for cryptographic purposes. Pros: Easy to implement, Cons: Not cryptographically secure.
* **`crypto.getRandomValues()`**: This method is designed to generate cryptographically strong random numbers. It uses the operating system's entropy pool to generate values. Pros: Cryptographically secure, suitable for generating secure tokens, salts, or nonces. Cons: May be slower than `Math.random()` due to its security features.
* **`crypto.randomUUID()`**: This method generates a random UUID (Universally Unique Identifier). It's designed to be used in cryptographic applications where a unique identifier is needed. Pros: Suitable for generating unique identifiers, Cons: Only generates a single value, not suitable for generating random numbers.

**Other Considerations**

When using these methods, it's essential to consider the following:

* **Performance**: `crypto.getRandomValues()` might be slower than `Math.random()` due to its security features.
* **Security**: `crypto.getRandomValues()` and `crypto.randomUUID()` are designed to be cryptographically secure, making them suitable for applications where security is a concern.

**Library and Special JS Features**

In this benchmark, the following libraries are used:

* None explicitly mentioned, but `crypto` is a built-in Node.js module that provides cryptographic functions.

No special JavaScript features or syntax are being tested in this benchmark. However, it's worth noting that some browsers may have different implementations of these methods, which could affect performance and security.

**Other Alternatives**

If you need to generate random numbers or unique identifiers, here are some alternative methods:

* For generating cryptographically secure random numbers: `webcrypto` API (modern browsers), `CryptGenRandom` (Windows), or `openssl rand` (Unix/Linux).
* For generating UUIDs: `uuid` library (JavaScript) or `uuid-node` module (Node.js).

In summary, this benchmark is testing the performance and security of three different methods for generating random values in JavaScript. The results will help users understand which method to use depending on their specific requirements and constraints.

Math.random vs crypto.getRandomValues (2) vs RandomUUID (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: `Math.random vs crypto.randomUUID vs crypto.getRandomValues`

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Go to the latest result

Math.random

crypto.randomUUID

crypto.getRandomValues

Historical Performance Data aggregated from 10 community runs

Desktop Results:

Chrome 10 runs

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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

Math.random vs crypto.getRandomValues (2) vs RandomUUID (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: Math.random vs crypto.randomUUID vs crypto.getRandomValues

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Go to the latest result

Math.random

crypto.randomUUID

crypto.getRandomValues

Historical Performance Data aggregated from 10 community runs

Desktop Results:

Chrome 10 runs

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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

Related benchmarks

Comparing performance of: `Math.random vs crypto.randomUUID vs crypto.getRandomValues`