Benchmark: Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Deep Comparison for Shallow Array of Strings but comparing to a hardcoded string

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = [
    'cat',
    'dog',
    'bird',
    {
        banana: {
            color: 'yellow'
        },
    },
];
window.bar = [{
        banana: {
            color: 'yellow'
        },
    },
    'cat',
    'dog',
    'bird',
];

Tests:

_.isEqual
_.isEqual(window.foo, window.bar)
JSON.stringify
'["cat","dog","bird",{"banana":{"color":"yellow"}}]' === JSON.stringify(window.bar);

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: 5 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/142.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 142 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	6945282.5 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	11335728.0 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 approaches for determining equality between two JavaScript data structures—a shallow array of strings with an additional object—and a hardcoded string representation of the expected structure. The two methods being evaluated here are:

1. **Lodash's `_.isEqual` function**: This utility function from the Lodash library is being used to perform a deep equality comparison of two values, in this case, `window.foo` and `window.bar`.

2. **`JSON.stringify` method**: This is a built-in JavaScript function that converts a JavaScript value (in this case, `window.bar`) into a JSON string. The comparison checks whether the stringified version of `window.bar` is strictly equal to a hardcoded JSON string representation of `window.foo`.

### Alternatives Compared

**1. Lodash's `_.isEqual`:**

- **Pros**:
  - Handles deep comparisons and can accurately compare complex nested structures.
  - Can handle various types of data (e.g., arrays, objects, etc.) and deals with edge cases that may not be considered by simpler equality checks.
  
- **Cons**:
  - May introduce overhead in terms of performance due to its recursive nature and comprehensive checking of all properties.
  - Requires the Lodash library to be included in the project, which may increase the overall bundle size.

**2. `JSON.stringify`:**

- **Pros**:
  - Fast and straightforward for shallow comparisons and simple data structures. 
  - Does not require any additional libraries.
  - Works well for converting simple objects/arrays to strings, allowing for an easy equality check.

- **Cons**:
  - May fail for complex cases like objects with different key orders or functions; stringified representations of objects might not always be equal even if their content is.
  - Does not support deep equality checks effectively; certain edge cases (like handling of undefined or circular references) can lead to misleading results.

### Additional Considerations

When performing deep equality checks in JavaScript, software engineers have to weigh the performance implications against the complexity and accuracy of their data structures. While `_.isEqual` provides robust comparison capabilities, `JSON.stringify` can be beneficial in contexts where performance is critical and the data structure at hand is simple enough.

### Performance Results Overview

According to the benchmark results:

- The `JSON.stringify` method achieves approximately *8,348,864.5 executions per second*.
- The Lodash `_.isEqual` function achieves approximately *7,402,904.5 executions per second*.

This indicates that, in this particular test case and environment, `JSON.stringify` is faster than `_.isEqual`. However, it is essential to note that the context and complexity of the data structures should dictate which method is more appropriate rather than a purely numeric performance measure.

### Conclusion

Ultimately, the choice between `_.isEqual` and `JSON.stringify` for equality checks depends on the specific use case, the complexity of the data being compared, and the performance needs of your application. For developers, understanding the trade-offs of these methods will help in making informed decisions when implementing functionality that requires data comparison. Alternative methods, such as manual property checks or other libraries specifically designed for deep comparison, could also be explored for more tailored approaches.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Deep Comparison for Shallow Array of Strings but comparing to a hardcoded string (version: 1)

Test on isEqual performance

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):