Benchmark: getComputedStyle vs matchMedia (javi 2)

HTML Preparation code:

<div class="foo"></div>
<style>
.foo {
  transition: none;  
}
</style>

Tests:

getComputedStyle
var el = document.querySelector('.foo'); var result = window.getComputedStyle(el).getPropertyValue('transition');
matchMedia
var el = document.querySelector('foo'); var result = window.matchMedia('(prefers-reduced-motion)').matches;

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
getComputedStyle
matchMedia

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/128.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 128 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
getComputedStyle	1653813.5 Ops/sec
matchMedia	637819.8 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 JavaScript microbenchmark on MeasureThat.net.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark measures two different approaches to test the `transition` property of an element:

1. `getComputedStyle`: Uses the `window.getComputedStyle()` method to retrieve the computed style of an element.
2. `matchMedia`: Uses the `window.matchMedia()` API to query the `prefers-reduced-motion` media query.

**Options Compared**

The two options being compared are:

* `getComputedStyle`: Retrieves the `transition` property from the DOM element's computed style.
* `matchMedia`: Checks if the `prefers-reduced-motion` media query is matched, which indirectly affects the transition behavior.

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

1. **getComputedStyle**:
	* Pros:
		+ Directly retrieves the `transition` property from the DOM element's computed style.
		+ May be more efficient for simple cases.
	* Cons:
		+ Can be slower due to the additional overhead of retrieving the computed style.
		+ May not work as expected if the transition is not yet initialized or has been reset.
2. **matchMedia**:
	* Pros:
		+ More robust and reliable, as it takes into account the media query context.
		+ Can handle more complex scenarios where `getComputedStyle` might fail.
	* Cons:
		+ Slower due to the need to execute a media query.
		+ May require additional setup and parsing of the media query.

**Library Used**

The `matchMedia` API uses the Web APIs (Web Applications Programming Interface) specification, which is a set of standardized interfaces for web applications. The `prefers-reduced-motion` media query is part of this specification.

**Special JS Feature or Syntax**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax used in this benchmark. Both approaches rely on standard DOM and API methods.

**Other Considerations**

* **Cache**: MeasureThat.net likely caches the results to reduce the number of repeated measurements.
* **Browser Variability**: The benchmark may not account for browser variability, which can lead to differences in performance between different browsers or versions.
* **Device Support**: Not all devices support the `prefers-reduced-motion` media query, so this benchmark might not be representative of all possible scenarios.

**Alternative Approaches**

Other approaches could include:

* Using a library like `cssom-viewer` to manipulate the DOM and retrieve styles more efficiently.
* Implementing a custom solution using JavaScript and CSS to evaluate the transition property.
* Using a testing framework like Jest or Mocha to write unit tests for the `getComputedStyle` and `matchMedia` APIs.

Keep in mind that these alternatives might not be as efficient or representative of real-world scenarios as the original benchmark.

Related benchmarks:

getComputedStyle vs matchMedia (javi 2) (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: getComputedStyle vs matchMedia

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

getComputedStyle

matchMedia

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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