Benchmark: lodash isEqual vs JSON.stringify

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

const obj1 = {
  boolVal: true,
  arrVal: [
    	"string 1",
        "string 2",
        "string 3",
        "string 4",
        "string 5",
        "string 6",
        "string 7",
  ]
};

const obj2 = {
  boolVal: true,
  arrVal: [
    	"string 1",
        "string 2",
        "string 3",
        "string 4",
        "string 5",
        "string 6",
        "string 7",
  ]
};

Tests:

_.isEqual
_.isEqual(obj1, obj2);
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(obj1) === JSON.stringify(obj2);

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/134.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 134 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	2734971.0 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	2695942.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark being tested compares two methods of deep equality checking in JavaScript: using the `lodash` library's `_.isEqual` method versus using the built-in `JSON.stringify` method for comparison.

### Options Compared

1. **`_.isEqual` Method (from Lodash)**
   - **Description**: This function from the `lodash` library performs a deep comparison between two values to determine if they are equivalent. Lodash handles various data types and checks for structural equality rather than just reference equality.
   - **Library Purpose**: Lodash is a utility library that provides functions for common programming tasks, making it easier to work with arrays, numbers, objects, strings, and more while promoting readability and efficiency in JavaScript.

2. **`JSON.stringify` Method**
   - **Description**: This method converts JavaScript objects into JSON strings, then compares those string representations. In this case, two objects are serialized and checked for equality in their string form.
   - **Advantages**: Simple and straightforward to implement for plain objects that can be effectively serialized into JSON.

### Pros and Cons of Each Approach

#### Pros of `_.isEqual`:
- **Handles Complex Types**: Capable of comparing complex nested structures, including arrays and objects, taking into account ordering and prototype chains.
- **Handles Edge Cases**: Designed to correctly handle edge cases like comparing `NaN`, functions, and cyclic references.

#### Cons of `_.isEqual`:
- **Performance Overhead**: Might be slower than simple equality checks because it deeply analyzes each property and value.
- **Dependency**: Requires loading the `lodash` library, which adds external dependencies to the project.

#### Pros of `JSON.stringify`:
- **Simplicity**: Straightforward to use with minimal setup, ideal for simple data structures.
- **Performance**: Faster execution for flat objects due to the straightforward string comparison after serialization.

#### Cons of `JSON.stringify`:
- **Loss of Information**: May not handle all data types (e.g., functions, `undefined`, `Symbol`, etc.) correctly, leading to incorrect comparisons for complex objects.
- **Serialization Order**: Does not guarantee the order of properties, which can lead to false negatives if object property order differs.

### Benchmark Results

From the benchmark results provided, we see that `JSON.stringify` has a higher execution count, with **2,933,073** executions per second compared to `_.isEqual`, which achieved **2,605,226** executions per second. This indicates that `JSON.stringify` is generally faster in scenarios with non-complex structures, while `_.isEqual` provides a more thorough and safer way to perform equality checks for complex data.

### Other Considerations

- **Alternatives**: Other techniques for checking object equality include:
  - **Utilizing the `===` operator**: This only checks for reference equality, not structure.
  - **Deep comparison libraries**: Libraries like `deep-equal` or `fast-deep-equal` that are designed specifically for performance-sensitive deep equality checks.
  - **Custom Comparison Functions**: Developers can write tailored functions that fit specific use cases, balancing performance and functionality.

In conclusion, while both methods have their advantages and trade-offs, the choice between them should be guided by the specific requirements of the application, such as data complexity, performance needs, and tolerance for external dependencies.

Related benchmarks:

lodash isEqual vs JSON.stringify (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

Created: one year 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 gpt-4o-mini, generated one year ago):