Benchmark: Underscore vs Lodash: isNaN

HTML Preparation code:


<script src='https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.5/lodash.min.js'></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  window.lodash = _;
  _ = null;
</script>
<script src='https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/underscore.js/1.9.1/underscore-min.js'></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  window.underscore = _;
  _ = null;
</script>

Script Preparation code:

var a = NaN;

Tests:

Underscore
underscore.isNaN(a);
Lodash
lodash.isNaN(a);
Native JS
Number.isNaN(NaN)

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Underscore
Lodash
Native JS

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/132.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 132 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Underscore	45778088.0 Ops/sec
Lodash	109382328.0 Ops/sec
Native JS	138260944.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 2 months ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The provided benchmark compares the performance of three different approaches to determine if a value is `NaN`: using **Underscore.js**, **Lodash**, and the **native JavaScript** function `Number.isNaN`. The main focus is on assessing which of these methods can execute more efficiently, particularly in a browser environment.

### Overview of Options Compared

1. **Underscore.js (`underscore.isNaN(a)`):**
   - **Library Purpose:** Underscore.js is a utility library that provides functional programming helpers for JavaScript, including collection and array manipulation. The `isNaN` method checks if a value is `NaN`.
   - **Performance:** According to the benchmark results, the Underscore implementation is the slowest with **45,778,088 executions per second**.

2. **Lodash (`lodash.isNaN(a)`):**
   - **Library Purpose:** Lodash is an extension of Underscore.js, designed to offer improved performance and more features. It provides a similar `isNaN` function along with many other utility methods for manipulating data and collections.
   - **Performance:** The Lodash implementation performs better than Underscore, recording **109,382,328 executions per second**, making it a more efficient choice over Underscore in this context.

3. **Native JavaScript (`Number.isNaN(NaN)`):**
   - **Library Purpose:** This method is built into the JavaScript language itself and is specifically designed to check if a value is `NaN`. Unlike older implementations like `isNaN`, it provides a more reliable check as it does not coerce values to numbers.
   - **Performance:** The native JavaScript method is the fastest, achieving **138,260,944 executions per second**. This indicates that direct use of the language's built-in capabilities can often yield the best performance.

### Pros/Cons of Different Approaches

- **Underscore.js:**
  - **Pros:** Easy to use; great for functional programming tasks; provides a comprehensive set of utilities.
  - **Cons:** Slower execution in this benchmark compared to the other methods; introduces external dependency, which may not be needed for simple checks.

- **Lodash:**
  - **Pros:** More efficient than Underscore; has a broader feature set with optimizations; still maintains usability and a functional approach.
  - **Cons:** Like Underscore, it adds an external dependency; can be overkill for simple tasks.

- **Native JavaScript:**
  - **Pros:** Fastest execution; no external dependencies; directly supported and maintained by the JavaScript language.
  - **Cons:** Offers only the functionality for checking `NaN` without additional utilities or functional programming enhancements.

### Considerations and Alternatives

- **Considerations:** When deciding which method to use, consider not only the performance implications but also the readability, maintainability, and the complexity of the problem at hand. If the check for `NaN` is part of a larger functional programming task, using Lodash or Underscore may make sense despite their slight performance drawbacks. However, for simple value checks, the native `Number.isNaN` is certainly the best approach.

- **Other Alternatives:**
  - You could also use the traditional `isNaN(value)` function, which is globally available in JavaScript. However, unlike `Number.isNaN`, it performs type coercion, which can yield unexpected results with non-numeric values.
  - The option to create a custom `isNaN` function tailored for specific use cases does exist, but this comes with added complexity and generally won't outperform the built-in `Number.isNaN`.

This benchmark highlights the importance of choosing the right tools based on the task requirements, performance metrics, and project constraints. In most cases, utilizing built-in language features leads to optimal performance and reduced dependency management.

Related benchmarks:

Underscore vs Lodash: isNaN (version: 1)

Compare Underscore vs Lodash vs Native JS isNaN. Which is faster?

Comparing performance of: Underscore vs Lodash vs Native JS

Created: 2 months ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Underscore

Lodash

Native JS

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 2 months ago):